One of our top priorities should be taking care of our home. If the world tries to break up our family, we must fight to restore it by asking God for direction. How then, in times of destruction, can we restore our families? In this devotional, we will reflect on how Noah’s family overcame and fled destruction by edifying their home.
Frontier Ministries
Day 1
Scriptures: Genesis 6:5-9, Genesis 6:18
The Salvation of Your Family
Noah and his family lived in a time of moral depravity, so great that the Bible says the Lord saw wickedness and thoughts that were always for evil. However, the Lord showed his goodwill to Noah. In fact, the story is not just about Noah, but about his entire family. In the midst of the flood, God spared the lives of eight people, a whole family. Noah did not win alone.
Amongst all the wickedness, God found benevolence in Noah. Why? Because He found a family that would serve Him in Noah’s house. He saw a family shaped by godly standards and not by the society in which they lived. A family that serves the Lord is different, and even with all the ugliness of the world, God still saves them. A family that belongs to God does not stay in the storm, but has shelter inside the ark.
The world today can be compared to the society of Noah’s era. We live in a time of moral decay and many social, political, and spiritual issues. That is reason why we need to take care of our homes: so there is salvation in it. We need to attain God’s attention, just as Noah’s family, so we can receive the information on how to build and find protection inside the ark.
Day 2
Scriptures: Genesis 6:9-22, John 14:15
You Must Act to Rescue Your Family
Noah’s story is almost always told the same way, but we need to think about how hard it was to actually build the ark… God instructed Noah on how to construct it, but if he and his family had not followed through in obedience, salvation would not have come. God did not make an ark appear, Noah and his family had to build it.
God literally gave all the details necessary for building the ark. When we follow the Lord, He gives direction. His Word is filled with guidelines toward a blessed home, but the decision to build on it and execute His orders is ours to make. The Bible states that Noah did everything exactly as God had commanded him. Just as Noah, we must be attentive to his commands, bring them into our homes, and obey every single one of them.
Noah had to work for it. If the ark had not been built, surely the family would have no shelter to be saved from the flood. To rescue our home and family, we must act as God dictates.
Day 3
Scriptures: Mark 3:25, Mark 10:6-9, Exodus 20:12, 1 John 4:19-20
Do Not Allow Your Family to Become Divided
Fragmented families cannot escape the flood. We need to understand that unity within our home is essential to follow God’s plans. Therefore, their is importance in a family that is always talking, praying together, and sharing life together. How can we say we love God and mistreat or ignore our spouses or children who are by our side every day?
Noah’s family worked together before the flood, and continued doing so during the time they remained inside the ark. Imagine the work that went into taking care of all those animals and the tasks to maintain the ark in itself. They needed to be very organized and work together under the same purpose. Unity within the ark was essential.
A home must be a place of shelter, love, and respect. Husbands must respect their wives, and wives their husbands. Children need to learn how to talk with parents, and parents with their children. Society shows us marriages that do not last, and children who disrespect their parents. But God says we become one when we get married, and commands the children to honor their parents in the Lord.
Togetherness is essential for a blessed home. It is not automatic, often it will need to be worked upon with much dedication, conversation, and in some cases upon forgiveness and reconciliation. For us to be blessed, our home must be blessed, for a divided home cannot stand.
Day 4
Scriptures: Romans 12:11-19, Psalms 27:14, Psalms 40:1, Genesis 7:6
Don’t Give Up on Your Family
The ark took decades to be completed, and most of the time we want everything to happen quickly, or even instantly, in our family. We are no longer willing to wait for God’s time. We have been fixing problems for years, but we have no patience when it comes to solving them.
We live in “automatic” times, but this is not the reality of life with God. We have to face difficulties, and even when life becomes extremely hard, we cannot give up. We must learn to keep on fighting. To have a blessed family, patience is required. An argument will not always be resolved quickly, or a hurt may not turn into forgiveness overnight. Trust and love need to be cultivated. The harmony of a family is a daily achievement.
We can’t stop fighting for the salvation of our children and marriage. To fight is to do absolutely all we can: to pray, to fast, and to cry out to God! When in doubt of the next step, seek guidance in the Word: read the Bible.
Day 5
Scriptures: Genesis 8:20-22, Joshua 24:15, Acts 16:31
The Family Who Serves God Together
As Noah came out of the ark, he didn’t go to see the land or to find and prepare something to eat. The first thing he did was to raise an altar to the Lord. God was pleased with that offering, and then made a promise of blessing to all mankind.
It is time for us to raise an altar to God inside our homes. If there is a big secret to victory, this is it! Don’t do it only on Sundays, but expand on it and bring church home. Be a family that prays and worships together. God needs to be the center of our home and that can only happen when we worship together, along one another, holding hands or with our arms raised to heaven in adoration.
Like Noah, we should walk in God’s presence and work to strengthen our families. He is an example of a servant of God who took a holy stand before the corrupted world, and decided to work to save his own. We cannot let our home be destroyed by pain and evil. May God always be the center of our house, and may our families be more than conquerors through the name of Jesus. The time has come for us to enter the ark with our whole family and raise altars to God inside our homes!