Today, I am reading and commenting on  Genesis 4-7.

As I was reading the account of Cain and Abel, two things struck me.  The first being that God did not reject Cain’s offering.  God looked on Abel’s offering with favor, but did not do so on Cain’s.  As I read this, Cain did not sin until he took Abel out into the field and killed him.  God’s message to Cain after the offerings was that his anger and jealousy were baseless.  Cain had not been rejected, he could choose to follow his brother’s example and gain God’s favor.  Rather than do the hard work needed to gain favor, Cain chose to eliminate his brother.  I think that it is worth noting that it seems that gaining God’s favor would not really have been harder work than Cain was already doing.  He just would have needed to take special note in selecting his offering to God rather than choosing it almost as an afterthought.  Cain allowed his anger to rule over him, thus giving in to sin.  We should seek to rule over our anger and the sin which seeks to rule us, or we too shall be devoured by our sin.  If Cain had done what was right going forward from this moment, he would have gained God’s favor.  Instead, he gave in to his anger and to sin, and was ruled over by it.  If we do what is right, we will overcome sin.  Fill your time doing what is right, and you will gain God’s favor.  Fail to fill your time with doing what is right, and sin will rule over you.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.