Scripture:
Genesis 6:5
The Lord saw
how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and
that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the
time.
Genesis 6:5 tells us that "every inclination
of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time." What does
this mean? Should we take it literally and suppose that the people of Noah's
day were utterly evil, that they never had a good or generous or loving thought
in their heart?
I think the key word here is
"inclination." It's not that the people never had a good thought, but
what were they inclined toward? What was their gut response, their initial
attitude? The Bible tells us that they were inclined toward evil.
How did they get this way? What happened to make
their first thought toward anything be the wrong response?
The way I understand it, there are three
possibilities of how their and our hearts can be inclined:
- We
can be inclined toward neither good nor evil but have free will to choose
either.
- We
can be inclined toward evil.
- We
can be inclined toward good.
In the beginning, Adam and Eve had perfect free
will. They had not yet sinned and could choose either to do so or not to do so.
When they sinned, though, the choice became a little more one-sided. Their very
nature became sinful, and in their sinful nature, they became inclined toward
evil. One sin led to another. Eating the forbidden fruit led to hiding from God
and blaming each other. Later, Cain's refusal to give God his best offering led
to envying his brother, which led to deceit, which led to murder, which led to
lying to God.
The people in Noah's day were inclined toward evil
because of their sinful nature and because they continued to reinforce that
sinful nature by adding sin to sin to sin. They conditioned themselves to react
to each new situation with evil thoughts.
The third direction in which a human heart can be
inclined is toward the good. When we accept salvation and allow God's Spirit to
cleanse our hearts, we are once again given the opportunity to choose either
the good or the evil, just as Adam and Eve could freely choose. If we listen
again to our sinful nature, we will fall away from Christ, or, at least,
not grow in Him. But if we listen to the Spirit, by practice and repetition, we
will train our hearts to incline toward the good. This is spiritual growth.
This is discipleship. This is allowing God to give us a new heart.
So, where are you on that scale of heart
inclination? How do you respond to things? What is your knee-jerk reaction? Is
it toward evil or is it toward good? Maybe you're somewhere in the middle.
Gauge your thoughts and ask God to continually cleanse and train your heart
toward Him. The people of Noah's day would not listen to God's Spirit when He
tried to contend with their spirits. Let us not be as hard-hearted when God
speaks to us.
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