July 11 Daily Devotional

Monthly Theme:

By God’s Word and Spirit the world was made, and he uses the same tools to rebuild the creaking cosmos. God does not save some souls from the wreckage of the planet; instead, the whole groaning creation must be delivered from bondage by the love and power of God.

Bible Reading:

Genesis 3:14–19

Bible Text:

To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains."... To Adam he said, "... Cursed is the ground because of you" (Gen. 3:16–17).

Devotional:

Punishment follows transgression. That's a rule we can count on. Even those who seem to get away with murder in this life will eventually face the Judge.

The consequences of the first sin were as wide as the world and as deep as death. God cursed the serpent. He humiliated the woman. He gave the man a heavy load to bear. God also cursed the earth, so that there is a mixture of good and evil, pleasure and pain, delight and disappointment in every human endeavor. We never experience one without the other. And in the end, we return to the dust.

The first ray of hope shines in verse 15, where God compares the story of the human race to a fight between a man and a serpent. The brood of the serpent will fight with the children of humankind, says God. But I will not allow the children of Eve to fall under the everlasting spell of the devil.

God has put "enmity" between us and the devil, breaking our alliance with evil. So it is by God's grace that we are able to fight at all. And when God's Son became a child of the human race, he crushed the serpent's head. In the battle between the man and the serpent, the man gets wounded, but the serpent is crushed.

In principle, the humiliation, the sorrow, and the curse that resulted from the fall have been canceled by Christ. The battle has been won. But the war is not yet over.

Andrew Kuyvenhoven's Daylight, a modern devotional classic, was originally published in 1994. This edition is copyright by Faith Alive Christian Resources, from whom may be ordered Daylight, the predecessor of Twilight.

A man of many accomplishments, Andrew Kuyvenhoven is probably best known for his contributions to Today (formerly The Family Altar), a widely-used monthly devotional booklet associated with the Back to God Hour. Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations for this edition of Twilight are from the New International Version

Be sure to read the "Preface" and the "Acknowledgments" by the author.