{"id":4041,"date":"2022-06-21T03:39:45","date_gmt":"2022-06-21T08:39:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=4041"},"modified":"2022-06-21T03:39:45","modified_gmt":"2022-06-21T08:39:45","slug":"devotional-on-genesis-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-genesis-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Genesis"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-SF26kilzHJQ\/XLOFpOlXDeI\/AAAAAAAA6mI\/hxlKw2uyhZQawmKcmhgo1zsMaJX9BXbXwCKgBGAs\/s1600\/P7268810.JPG\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1002\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2013 &#8211; Watkins Glen State Park, NY<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Mercy\u2019s Mark<br \/>\nGenesis 3: God put a mark on Cain to protect him.<br \/>\nThe murderer has been confronted and has confessed. The sentence is banishment to a hostile world. From now on he\u2019ll be an outsider, apart from the family (it\u2019s not a nation yet) God claims as his own. Cain is crushed by this sentence and already feels the icy grip of loneliness on his life. Not only that, but he knows he\u2019s getting off with a sentence lighter than he deserves. He senses that the proper penalty for murder is death. In addition, he realizes that other people know it too. God may be banishing him, but he imagines other men hunting him down and taking his life that justice might be done. What the Lord does in response is, at the same time, one of the great mysteries of the Bible and also one of many great acts of mercy. Cain&#8217;s marked in some way that says to all he encounters \u201cThis man is under God\u2019s protection, leave him alone.\u201d I have no idea of what that mark is, in fact, I can\u2019t imagine how it works. However, I do know it&#8217;s a mark of mercy and I have a very good idea of what mercy looks like. It looks like the Lord forgiving me of my sins rather than condemning me as I deserve. It looks like hope instead of fear. It looks like Jesus on the cross of Calvary.<br \/>\nTake away: Thank God for the \u201cmark of mercy!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mercy\u2019s Mark Genesis 3: God put a mark on Cain to protect him. The murderer has been confronted and has confessed. The sentence is banishment to a hostile world. From now on he\u2019ll be an outsider, apart from the family (it\u2019s not a nation yet) God claims as his own. Cain is crushed by this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1497,7],"tags":[127,518,643,713,744],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4041"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4041"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13691,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4041\/revisions\/13691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}