January 10, 2024 | Be God's Light
The Fall of Humanity
Scripture: Genesis 3(NIV)
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
16 To the woman he said,
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”
20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.
21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
Devotional
“You will be like God.” With those enticing words, the sly serpent seduced Eve into convincing herself that a bite of the forbidden fruit was worth it. The devil still uses this same temptation on us today. Look out for number one. Be the master of your own universe. Take charge. You do you. The crux of sin is the desire to be our own god.
That’s when rationalization kicks in. Eve wanted to be like God. So she tricked herself into saying the fruit tasted good, looked good, and sounded good. After she took a bite or two, her husband thought, “Everybody else is doing it.” He munched away too. Oh how good we are at rationalizing our decisions to rebuff God and embrace evil.
Then came awareness (“they realized they were naked”), shame (“they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves”), deceit (“they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden”), and blame (“The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit” and “The serpent deceived me, and I ate”).
This story is simply known as “The Fall.” Adam and Eve fell from a perfect, intimate relationship with God, and fell into a finite life of hard labor and labor pains. This is our story as well. Romans 3:23 says “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” There’s that word fall again.
Psalm 7:15 says, “Whoever digs a hole and scoops it out falls into the pit they have made.” Our desire to be our own god always takes us farther from God. And too often, when we find ourselves in the pit of our own digging, we grab a shovel and dig some more. That’s a sure sign that you haven’t hit bottom.
A better answer is found in Lamentations 3:55, “I called on your name, Lord, from the depths of the pit.” Whether we find ourselves in a pit due to the sin of ourselves or the sin of others, the way out is always through God.
Confess your sin to God. Cry out to Him for rescue. Admit when you have tried to be your own god. And when tempted, claim this verse from 1 Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”
Poem
But really, I want THAT
So many options on the list
Of foods so good for me
There's more, O more, than one could wish From spinach to chickpea
Some fresh green herbs, some lovely spice
And precious olive oil
Quinoa and oats, barley and rice To steam or roast or boil
Here's pineapple and juicy pear
And watermelon sweet
Mango, kiwi and others rare Corn, common bean and beet.
O God, you made the garden full
(I hope I'm not a brat)
Obedience is your cherished goal But really, I want THAT.
