A New Year - New Challanges

Each New Year tends to cause me to reflect on the year passing… more often than not, I have a sense of sadness, or a feeling of loss. 

This past year has presented me with challenges that I never thought I’d have to face, which has caused me to examine and contemplate how the Lord would have me to handle these new challenges in accord with His truth. 

You can try to teach wisdom. You can try to demonstrate what is right, and help them to understand God’s truth and that there are ultimate consequences for sin. That every person will face eternity, everyone will face God.   Ultimately He is the judge.   So you can reason all you want with a person, but you can’t make them do anything, unless they are willing to— you cannot change their heart, you cannot change their mind. 

All this contemplation took me back. . .  all the way to Genesis
God said you eat that tree, you die.   That’s it.   They didn’t even know what death was!  The sin was breaking the specific command of eating of the tree.  
Genesis 2: 16 – 17  But the Lord God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”

God told them not to eat of it, God did not say - not to touch it.

Eve was truly deceived by the serpent (after all she wasn’t there when God gave Adam those instructions).   The serpent said you could be like God (v. 5); you can become one of the gods.   This will make you wise.   You can fulfill your desires. Basically he filled her head with ideas that enticed her imagination. . .  perhaps causing her to think she didn’t have to concede to everything that God says.  Maybe she even believed that God was holding back good things from them. She rationalized and went by her feelings instead of submitting to God and acquiescing to His commands …  She bought into the lie. But she also added to God's Word, He never said not to touch it (see vr2-3 below), this is the danger of  altering the Word of God. 

Genesis 3:  ¹ The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”

² “Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. ³ “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’”

⁴ “You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. ⁵ “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”

⁶ The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it.

She wanted that tree; she wanted what she thought she deserved.  She was selfish.  That’s all she was thinking of, how delicious it will taste to me. . .  how beautiful it looks to me. . .  how wise it will make me. . .  I, my, me. . .

What occurred here was the birth of self.

And Eve trampled on the rights of Adam.   He was her husband, they were in this together.   She didn’t consult him.   In fact, it was too late by that time—she gave him the fruit. Essentially she said, “Come on Adam, I’m the leader, follow me, this is going to be terrific.”   And Adam, the Bible says was not deceived, he was in a transgression.   He did this with his eyes wide open.   He knew that he was disobeying God.   He knew that he was going down the path to destruction.

He made a choice. . .

His choice was Eve over God.  

Which brings me back to the challenges that I’m facing. . .  I must remember what God’s Word teaches, and STAND on His Truth, not wavering.  Yes, I am to love, I am to be kind, but I also must be the light that helps to point in the direction of God’s redeeming power. Not through a judgmental attitude or condescending words. But to demonstrate His love. . .  For God so loved the world He gave. . . (John 3:16).  I too must give of myself and love, pray, hope, and trust, that the One who loved so much that He gave – will also bring this challenge of mine into His perfect peace.