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Genesis 3 contains an account that has been viewed as the fall of man. In summary, Eve questions God’s authority by disobeying him after a beguiling conversation with the serpent. I have heard many a message on this particular subject and just this past weekend I looked at it from a different perspective. You see for the longest time I had faulted the serpent for tricking Eve (which I still do blame him) but I realized recently that Eve was in control of her choices that fateful day and I can learn at least three lessons from her on what not to do, and what traps of the Enemy to avoid. First, Eve conversed with the Enemy. And for what? She already had instructions from God, “Don’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:17). The instructions were simple and understandable. Eve’s conversation with the Enemy allowed doubt to slip into her mind because what he did is question God’s word. “Did God really say, you must not eat from any tree in the garden? (Genesis 3:1) You see, as Christians when we start to allow doubt of God’s spoken word to enter into our minds we are in trouble. Lesson #1 -Stop and immediately evaluate the situation. To borrow from a friend of mine, faith is an essential in the race of Christianity. If we are to live the life of a child of God it requires faith—without we cannot please God (Hebrews 11:6). So when I find myself questioning God’s instructions for me, I should pause and redirect my energies back to his original instructions. It seems simple but how often have you left the house in a hurry and forgotten your directions or a map to a place (this is before the GPS)? Your first mind would tell you to go back and get them, but instead you decide to go from memory. But what happens? Usually you end up lost. So this is all I’m saying, go back and refer to God’s road map for your life. Next, Eve was drawn away by something when she had this conversation. I would argue that it was her lust. Lust for what? In a word—more. It was as if she thought that God in all his goodness was keeping his best from her by not allowing her to eat from that tree. Which couldn’t have been the case because it is against God’s nature not to be good and have our best interest in mind, he loves us too much! But yet and still, our poor little Eve was fooled into thinking (by Satan’s brief interrogation) that if we question God’s way of bringing about our good we can somehow find fallacy in him. So lesson #2—when I sin it is because of my lust problem, not because God isn’t good. Look at it this way, Eve could have just as easily ignored the serpent, and walked over to Adam and continued about in her day. She made a choice to listen to what he said and then do what she thought was best in her mind. We are the same way. I know I have made dumb choices in life and if I am honest it was no one’s fault but my own. God didn’t “set me up”. I set up myself by being drawn away by my lust for a particular thing that God said no to. God is holy. There is no fault in him. So when he tells us to stay away from sexual immorality, greed, pride or jealousy you better believe it is for our good. However, we like Eve, question his authority and ability to bring (spiritual and natural) death to those that disobey him. Think about it. How else could the serpent have caused her to throw away all that she had in the garden? The spiritual and natural immortality, intimacy with her mate, and fellowship with God was all forfeited because she questioned God’s ability to bring death (Genesis 3:3-4). Which brings us to lesson #3--never question God’s authority. Ultimately, her short-sightedness had her focusing solely on natural death, which was only delayed for a period of time. But the bigger loss and consequence of her disobedience was spiritual separation from God. This spiritual gene has been handed down from generation to generation. It has caused each person born to this earth to be fashioned with a God-shaped hole in his or her heart and a longing to have it filled. Unfortunately, many wander through life trying to fill it with anything but God. Have you ever had to substitute something for the real thing? When I was younger, my cousin and I played the game Monopoly (by Parker Bros.) And at a time, we lost pieces to the game so we substituted those pieces with things that were not part of the original game. We were able to go on playing the game, but it just wasn’t the same as before. That is just how it is in life also. When we don’t choose God to fill that hole in our hearts we often just go on not living our best life. But God has given us the ability to choose him through his son Jesus. He has given us the ability to correct the “great human mistake” made those many years ago. What will you choose to fill the hole in your heart?

Lord give me the strength to choose you over everything else in life that seems to be important but not necessary. In Jesus’ name. Amen

Suggested readings: Genesis 2-3; Hebrews 11:1-6

"Refreshment in Refuge" from Gina Burgess

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