Opas Devos: Recent Episodes
Andy Bonikowsky
These are simple devotional thoughts from the Bible, for my grandkids, and those of any others interested!
Abram was afraid, though not about a visible enemy. He was scared that God was not going to give him what was promised. So the very first words the Lord speaks to him are very significant. (OD62)
The wicked king of Sodom offers to give Abram all the spoil from his city, if he can have the people. Abram tells him that he wants absolutely nothing from Sodom. (OD61)
When Abram returns from rescuing Lot, two kings come out to meet him. They are very different from each other. (OD60)
Abram was a pretty brave man, and quite smart. He had trained the servants who were born at his home in military combat and now that training came in very handy. (OD59)
Lot had made some very bad choices and his life was starting to have big problems. In today’s story he gets caught up in a battle between a bunch of kings! He was probably wishing he had stayed closer to his uncle Abram. (OD58)
Abram had a very good habit. He would build an altar to honor God’s goodness to him and to serve as a reminder of the special event that had happened there. (OD57)
So while Lot selfishly chose the best, but God privately told Abram that in the end he would get everything. (OD56)
Selfishness never works. God makes sure of it. Here Lot chooses the very best for himself, or so he thought. (OD55)
God’s blessing sometimes brings complicated situations, as what happened when Abram and Lot began to be rich. They had too many things and workers for the small bit of land they lived in, so Abram, the uncle and the mature one, decides to find a solution. (OD54)
Some people think that being rich is bad. But that is not what the Bible teaches. It can be dangerous, but it can also be a reward from God and a huge blessing to others. Abraham became very rich, but he did not let his many possessions take his eye off of the Lord. (OD53)
How important it is to learn to obey! At first, our parents, but ultimately, to learn to obey God. He always knows what is best. Abraham sets a great example for us. (OD#52)
God interrupted Abram’s life with a command and a tremendous blessing. He told him to leave his country and extended family to move to a place where God would make him a great nation. (OD#51)
People often think they can outsmart God, or that they can disobey Him and get away with it. But nobody is as wise and powerful as God, and He will always win. In this story He knows exactly how to get Noah’s descendants to scatter and populate the earth. (OD#50)
Nowadays many people know two or three languages, or at least know somebody who speaks a different language. But before the flood that was not the case. (Opa’s Devos #49)
So Noah and his three sons, and the four wives, left the ark and God told them to fill the earth with family! (Opa’s Devos #48)
God gave a sign to go with the covenant or agreement He made with Noah, his family, and the animal kingdom. (Opa’s Devos #47)
After Noah and his family, and all the animals, leave the ark, God establishes a covenant with them all. It is basically a promise He makes to all of creation, one that He will confirm with a sign. It is unconditional, nothing man could ever do would be able to cancel it. OD46
After the flood, the world was different in many ways. One of these changes came in the relationship between man and the animals. Fear of man became a natural reaction in the animal kingdom. (OD45)
The first thing Noah did was build and altar and thank God for his protection. The Lord was happy with that and promised to never again change the whole world with a flood like that. (OD44)
So after an entire year, Noah and his family, and all of the animals, leave the ark! The walk into a new kind of world in which there are no animals except the ones that came out with them. (OD43)
Seven days later Noah tries again, and this time the dove brought back an olive leaf in its mouth. Noah waits one more week before sending the bird back out, and it never returns. He then sticks his head out of the top opening and sees that the earth is indeed dry again! (OD42)
There were things God did not tell Noah, things he had to find out for himself. Sending out a raven and a dove was using his common sense to find the will of God. (OD41)
God never forgets anything! But God teaches us with words that we can understand, and here He wants us to realize that He will always act at the right time. (OD40)
So after all those preparations, 100 years of building, 7 days of getting the animals and supplies in, it finally began to rain. And it rained like crazy, for 40 days and 40 nights, until the highest hill was covered. (OD39)
I’m sure the door to the ark was pretty big and I don’t know if Noah had prepared a way to shut it from the inside. But that didn’t matter, because God was going to be the one to shut the door. (OD38)
As they went through the last week of preparations, Noah was obedient and faithfully followed the detailed instructions God gave him. His family, all the animals, and the necessary food were loaded into the ark. (OD37)
God gave Noah clear and simple instructions about who and what was to go on the ark. There were eight people, his close family, and certain kinds and numbers of animals. (OD36)
It was going to be a time of miracles. Not only would God bring a flood, but he would guide exactly one couple of each animal, straight into the ark Noah had built. (OD35)
What is an ark? What is a boat? Noah may have asked the same question, we’re not sure. But what we can be sure of is that he was surprised at how big it was to be! (OD34)
But Noah. What a wonderful little statement! There was one man in the middle of all those sinful people who was working hard to keep his family clean, and God saw it. (OD33)
Can God be sorry? Yes. He can be sorry, though never surprised. Here He speaks in dramatic terms so that we will understand that even He feels pain when we sin. (OD32)
He is probably the only man in history to walk right into heaven. In this unusual story of Enoch, God is making a statement. He wants us to realize how important it is to walk with Him. (OD31)
The consequences of sin are often big, much more serious than we usually imagine. Here we find out what happened to Cain after killing Abel and lying to God. (OD30)
God knew exactly what had happened, but He spoke to Cain in a way that helped him understand there was nothing he could do to hide his sin. (OD29)
Nobody had ever died before. And we don’t know how he did it, but somehow Cain killed his brother Abel, and for the first time in history, human blood was poured out on the ground. (OD28)
Cain and Abel bring offerings to the Lord, Abel from his lambs and Cain from his garden. God accepts Abel’s offering but not Cain’s, and Cain become very angry. (OD27)
For the first time ever, babies are born, two boys. This is the first family in the world. (OD26)
Now that Adam and Eve had let evil come into their world, everything was going to change for the worse. One of the first results was that they were kicked out of the beautiful garden. (OD25)
One of the first reactions Adam and Eve after they sinned was to try to clothe themselves, since they suddenly felt so naked and vulnerable. They used fig leaves, but God had other plans, and killed an animal to provide proper clothes for them. (OD24)
After God spoke to the snake about the consequences of his ugly behavior, He turns to the woman and the man, to tell them what will happen because of their sin. The world will be very different from now on. (OD23)
When God asked Eve what she had done, she blamed the snake! So God spoke to the snake and cursed it, promising a war between its family and the woman’s, ending in the destruction of the snake. (OD22)
God asked Adam if he had eaten from the forbidden tree and instead of answering the question and being sorry, he pointed to Eve and blamed her. In a way, he even blamed God because He had given her to him. (OD21)
When Adam and Eve ate the fruit and sinned, the immediately knew something was very wrong. One of their reactions was to hide as soon as the heard the voice of God calling them for their stroll through the garden. (OD20)
It is very dangerous to have conversations with people who say things against what God has told us. How important to know what voices to listen to and what voices to run from. (OD19)
Questions can be good or bad, often depending more on the attitude with which they are made than with the actual words. In this episode we se the first, very bad question made by the snake. (OD18)
When God had Adam name the animals He was also setting him up for the surprise of his life! (OD#17)
Adam was extremely intelligent. And one of the first jobs he ever received from the Lord was to name all the animals. But this chore was more than just a job on the list. God wanted Adam to notice something that wasn’t entirely good, and set him up for the surprise of his life! (OD16)
Is it good to have to work? God made work before sin ever entered the world. It was part of His plan for man. But at the same time He made some rules, and it’s important to understand why. (OD15)
For some reason God gives us more details about the garden, telling us about a river that gushes out of it and turn into four more! We don’t understand everything about them, but we know they were beautiful and helped make Eden the perfect place for man. (OD#14)
Now God gives a little more detail about how He created man and He also tells us about a beautiful garden with two special trees.
God created for seven days and then rested. Was He tired? If not, why did He rest? (OD11)
In this passage we learn something that may sound pretty strange. When God made the animals and people, none of them ate meat! (OD#10)
God saved the best for last! After all the earth was filled with plants and animals, it was ready for God’s final creation.
In five days of creation, God has done a bunch! But the earth is still quite empty, so this sixth day becomes very special!
We have earth and water and sky. We have plants and trees, but there is very little movement! Good is going to change that on this next day!
God had already made the light a few days earlier. But now He creates something new and special that fits with the light. (OD6)
So far we have seen God create in two days the light, dividing the day from the night, and water, and the heavens. What will happen on the third day?
After the first day of creation we have day and night, that's all! But then God continues His creating work and adds more things to the world He is making.
The first thing God made was light. But then He did something with it and when He was finished the first day was born.