shut up!

Genesis 7:13,16

On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark… Then the Lord shut him in.

The story of Noah and his ark is a type of the story of our lives, of those who have been called and Christ. Noah, by faith says the writer of Hebrews, built an ark believing that salvation would be found in it.

For us, we believe that Jesus is our ark, our hope and salvation is found in him.

Noah walked into the ark and you would have thought he was responsible for his own salvation. In the same way, we sometimes think we are responsible for our own salvation. But salvation is no salvation at all if we aren’t shut in. If we could drift in and out of salvation, I’d be forever scared of whether I was in or out!

But we are not kept in salvation because of what we do. The Lord shut Noah into his ark of salvation. In the same way, the Lord has “shut you in” in Christ your salvation.

I think there would have been times when the flood was pounding against this wooden box and they wondered if the ark really was strong enough. I think maybe they thought it was just too hard being cooped up with dirty animals without sanitation for forty days (and that was just the in-laws! Ba-da-tish!). Maybe as they saw the judgment of God on the world outside they thought they didn’t deserve to be in the ark.

But the thing is, they couldn’t leave the ark because they didn’t shut the door - it was the Lord that kept them into the ark. We don’t keep ourselves in Christ, God does. He keeps you safe and protected, He is in charge of assuring your salvation, health and prosperity.

Prayer for this week: Father, thank you for your redeeming work. I want to know more about Jesus and how He has given me everything. No matter what happens, I can always rely on what was done for me at the cross.