Light and Life for Today

7. Choices

From the moment you wake up, you are faced with a never ending series of choices: will you stay in bed all day or get up, have oats for breakfast or make pancakes, dress casual or formal, drive according to the road rules or bend them, be honest or dishonest in your dealings with people.....etc. When God made people, he could have made us like robots, programmed to behave in a certain way but he didn't. God gave us a free will, allowing us to make choices, desiring for us to choose the way of love and obedience.

Here, we see God's first instructions given to Adam. They seemed pretty straightforward:

"The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. 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.""
‭‭Genesis‬ ‭2:15-17‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Adam was to work in the spectacular garden that God had created but God gave him a warning —he was not permitted to eat the fruit of one of the trees in the garden. That seemed like an easy thing to avoid when he had such a vast array of other fruit to eat! But it's at this point, we see the first humans, exercising their free will. If there wasn't a command given by a God, there would never have been a choice. God wants us to choose to love and obey Him though choice:

"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?" "Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden," the woman replied. "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.'" "You won't die!" the serpent replied to the woman. "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." 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. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too. At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves." Genesis‬ ‭3:1-7‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Here we see the serpent speaking to Eve and while this passage doesn't identify him as being Satan (which in Hebrew means 'adversary', one who opposes or plots against another), we know it was certainly him from reading the rest of the Bible. For example, Isaiah 28:13-19 tells us Satan was there in the garden of Eden and Revelation 12:9 tells of his ultimate demise: "This great dragon—the ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world—was thrown down to the earth with all his angels." Satan wanted to deceive and spoil the close relationship that Adam and Eve had with God.

We see how cunning the serpent was in his approach to Eve and we must remember that our enemy, Satan still uses the same cunning ways to try to deceive us, although it's probably unlikely he will talk to us from the body of a serpent! Just remember that whenever we are tempted, our position as a child of God means that in Jesus, we have victory over the enemy!

Satan perhaps chose to speak to Eve because she may have been more vulnerable as God had warned Adam about the tree and he had passed the information on. Our enemy still looks to deceive those who are most vulnerable! In this situation, Satan approached Eve, raising doubts about the truth of what God had said, 'Did God really say....?' Satan was misquoting God and trying to suggest to Eve that God was not very generous! Even though Eve responded showing she understood what God had said, a glimmer of doubt had been raised in her mind. It's interesting that we see Eve added to God's instruction concerning the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, by adding they were not to even 'touch it'.

Satan's response, 'You won't die!...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', made Eve see him as a friend. While it was true that their eyes would be opened, it was to their own sin and rebellion against God and things would never be the same again!

It is such a terribly sad moment when Eve, having been deceived, gives in to temptation and takes the fruit. She believed the serpent instead of God, ate the fruit and then shared it with Adam who openly rebelled and deliberately chose to disobey. This sin severed Adam and Eve's close relationship with God. Suddenly, they knew evil because they had done evil, the way they saw themselves changed. Their eyes were opened and their nakedness now brought them shame as they were exposed both physically and spiritually.  They quickly sought to cover themselves but their guilt remained.

We can try many things in order to cover our sin but there is only one way to deal with sin and thankfully, we don't have to hide from God because we live on the other side of the cross:

"And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes." Galatians‬ ‭3:27‬ ‭NLT‬‬

‭‭Prayer:

Heavenly Father,
It is so hard to read about this very sad moment in history but seeing how easily Eve was tempted, makes me determined to take my stand against the deceiver! Thank You that Jesus has triumphed over evil, sin and death through his death and resurrection. As I put my trust in You, help me to be prepared and alert today. May I be aware that Satan, the enemy 'prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.' (1 Peter 5:8) May I read and know Your Word so I will not be deceived.

In Jesus' Name,
Amen.

"For you are the fountain of life, the light by which we see."
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭36:9‬ ‭NLT‬‬