If God would send His Son Jesus to suffer and die for all of our sins, why do we think it out of the range of possibilities that God would create the whole universe just for our enjoyment and exploration?
As we were driving over the mountains and the high mesas to get back to our home in northern Arizona I was thinking about a small part of what I had shared at retreat. I shared how the LORD God had given Adam and Eve the ability to explore all of that which was good and unlimited time in which to do so. As long as they obeyed and stayed away from eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil they could choose to do whatever their hearts desired.
Think about it, if you had a perfect body without any signs of aging or disease and literally all the time in the world what would you want to study? Would you create music and musical instruments? Would you study plants or animals in such detail that you would completely understand them, even down to the tiniest atom? Would you look up to the stars and make a way to go explore other planets or galaxies? Would you pick up a paintbrush and paint for thousands of years trying to capture the colors of a sunset? How about exploring the world from top to bottom to discover all the amazing places God had created for them here on this world. There was no limit…
Paul in Philippians 4:8 tells us…."Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things." And since they only knew good they would be doing exactly this. They would know no fear or worry, there would be no guilt or selfish desires because only that which was good would be fodder for their thoughts and desires. And to top that off, each evening they had a face to face encounter with Creator God as they walked in the Garden and discussed the day’s events.
Adam had to choose to disobey…he did not get tricked, he was not fooled, he was not beguiled…he chose to disobey. He had seen God face to face. He was just beginning to explore an amazingly beautiful world. He had the perfect mate and the promise of many perfect children to come. He could know all good, yet he chose to know less good because that is what happens when you know evil. You no longer are able to know the good in an area if you chose to know the evil in that place. Imagine you are given two apple slices, one is luscious and crisp and the other is starting to turn brown and looks mushy. Which do you want your mouth to know? If you eat the good piece you have no need to experience the bad one and if you eat the bad one it will take away from the pleasure of then eating the good one.
In both of the Gardens, Eden and Gethsemane, the choice was whether or not to do God’s will. The first involved not eating and the second involved drinking of the cup of God’s wrath. The first caused man to be separated from God and the second made the possibility of restoration available to those with faith in Jesus. We do not see any great struggle in Adam’s decision but we see Jesus sweating great drops of blood in His agony.
What is it like when we are presented with the same choice of whether to obey God or to go on our own way? There are times when we agonize over the choice and there are times when we seem to make the choice easily, whether rightly or wrongly. But the truth is, each and every time we are choosing whether we want to know more of the good or do we want to decide for ourselves what is more desirable… good or evil. If God is all Good then to not choose Good is to choose less of God. We may think the sin is little, but then so did Adam and look what happened there. By choosing less of God, Adam ended up with a dead spirit and a dying body and this is our legacy from him.
But our legacy from Jesus is life and life more abundantly; a living spirit resides within us now, indwelt with all good in the form of Holy Spirit. We now have complete access once again to all good. Unlike Adam we have baggage from our pasts that may cause us to stumble now and again. But also unlike Adam we have been redeemed and when we stumble we have one who will forgive us as soon as we repent and confess.
For the rest of our lives here we need to be learning more and more of that good. How do we do that?
- Get to know intimately the One who has come to restore all that was lost.
- Spend time in conversation with Jesus.
- Study the Bible so you can learn what is good.
- Revel in the promises that are in the Bible for you because of God’s great love for you.
- Share your love with those around you.
- Choose good at every opportunity.
- Repent when you do not choose good…the only defeated sin is a forgiven one.
- Spend time with other Christians.
