Where Are You?

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

WHERE ARE YOU?

Gen 3:8-13

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."

NIV

What is referred to as the fall of man is the central theme of this act of feeling shame and covering their nakedness. We have the conversation between God and the man and the woman when God finds them hiding among the trees and asks that penetrating question, "Where are you?"  Surely, God knew exactly where they were physically hiding among the trees, but he wanted them to expose themselves, to come out and admit where and why they were trying to hide from him. Much has been said about the man making the excuse, actually blaming God for putting the woman here in the garden with him, that it was her fault, she gave him the fruit to eat. Of course, the woman blamed the serpent. But what may have been missed in this narrative is that incredible question from God, "Where are you?" This is the question he could be asking any of us at any time in our lives. Could there be times when we think we might be able to hide from God? When we start to listen to our own heart, wanting our own way, thinking we can choose what we do, how we do it, and when we do it, then perhaps we are either deceiving ourselves or being deceived by 'the serpent'. God is asking us, "Where are you?" Where are you spiritually? Where are you in your spiritual journey? Where are you in either your obedience or rebellion?  Have you chosen religion instead of me? Have you eaten from the tree of religion, rather than from the tree of life? Have you chosen good works instead of my grace? "Where are you?" Why do we try to hide from God, even when we want what we want, when we want it, which ends up being sin? Do we think he will reject us, throw us out of the garden, as he ended up doing with Adam and Eve? The major difference is that Jesus is "The Gate." He made it clear when he said, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. Whoever enters through me will be saved". Jesus opened the way back into the garden, into the paradise, the very presence of God, where we can walk with him, talk with him, and he will tell us we are his own, and joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known. If God ever asks, "Where are you?" we need to answer, "I am here, Lord". 

The Lie

 

DEVOTION

GENESIS

THE LIE

Gen 3:1-7

3:1 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 surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of 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.

NIV

This is one of the most difficult yet most important passages. The question of the ages has always been about the identity of the serpent. This creature was made by God the same day he formed man, and, according to the account, this creature walked upright, spoke the same language as Adam and Eve, and had reason, as it reasoned with Eve during its temptation of her. None of the great theological minds has come to an agreement as to what kind of beast this was, other than it was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. We could not speculate, as we have no basis to know what kind is meant by the term serpent, although every time the Hebrew word is used, it is translated as serpent, at times implying a type of snake, but then that was the curse placed upon it for its role in the fall of man. However, the point we believe is relevant to the truth is that the attempt to deceive with a lie always comes from the mouth of Satan. Then we would have to believe this serpent, whatever type of beast, was an agent used by Satan to draw Eve away from believing God. Because that is the truth of this passage, we can be certain that all temptations are from the evil one, Satan, or an agent he uses, to draw us away from believing God. There is no question that we are all born with sin, and in our human condition, we will never be totally free from all sin. However, what is the cause of our sin, and does it draw us away from believing God? Surely, we believe in God, but the serpent's temptation of Eve was not about her belief in God, but her believing God. This is the question for our hearts: do we believe God? It is a much larger issue than believing in God. Can we say that all temptations are an effort to sway us from believing God? Had Adam and Eve told the serpent that they would stick with believing God, they would not have fallen, and sin would not be in the world today. They had the choice to believe God or the lie.  Then we need to deal with the omniscience of God, that he knew before creation, this temptation and acceptance to believe evil rather than him would happen, and that Jesus would need to come to redeem his creation, giving them back the choice to believe the serpent, or God. That is always the choice, but when we fall, does that mean we choose at the moment to not believe God? That seems to be true, no matter how much we say we believe what God has said. We should always remember his forgiveness, his grace, his love, his mercy, that we are in Christ, our sins are covered by his blood, we have been washed cleaner than the whitest snow, and that we have been given the Holy Spirit to guide us. Thank you, Lord!

Naked and Shameless

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

NAKED AND SHAMELESS

Gen 2:23-25

23 The man said,

"This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man." 24 For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. 25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

NIV

Now that God took the rib from the side of man and made a suitable helper for him, he brought her to the man, who, just as he named all the living things on the earth, he named her 'woman' for she was taken out of man. Some would say that her identity is associated with the man, or that the woman exists from man, and therefore was made for man. However, in the context of the scripture, it clarifies the exact relationship. Although at the time of this beginning, the account was put into words, there were many fathers and mothers; yet, at the time woman was taken out of man, there were none. Yet the truth remains that the two shall become one flesh. This Hebrew word, translated as "flesh," can mean exactly one body, but it is also used to refer to blood relatives, kindred. The idea is that the two should become one person, united. This would indicate that there are not two individuals, each with their own agendas, plans, or goals; they would be living as one, united. Because of further instructions given by God regarding the family structure, God has given the man the responsibility for the woman, or husband and wife. Because the husband is held accountable to God for his wife, he has also been given authority over his wife. That is not the most popular concept in our modern age, where, in the most recent years, the push for equal rights has been at the forefront.  However, in light of God's word, the two are one; they are already equal, for one cannot be divided into two with one half trying to be more than the other, but they would only be half of one, not one. The other truth we should consider is that Adam and Eve, man and his wife, were both naked and felt no shame. That is how God intended them to be, naked and without shame. Of course, we now wear clothes, but the idea is that we should be living bare before God, naked, exposed, hiding nothing from God, and living with no shame. At this point in their lives, Adam and his wife had not committed any act of disobedience or sin, so they had no reason to feel shame. We cannot say that we have not committed sin or that we do not continue to have sin in our lives. However, when the Holy Spirit convicted us of our need to repent, to change the way we think about God, our lives, and sin, we turned from a sinful life to believing the truth of God and accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior. When we did that, it did or does not mean we are now sinless, but because of Jesus, we are still able to live without shame, for God has declared us innocent, or holy and pleasing in his sight. Because our sin is covered by the blood of Jesus, shame has been covered. Let us live bare, naked, and shameless before God. 

Side by Side

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

SIDE BY SIDE

Gen 2:18-22

18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." 19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

NIV

Why is it one of the important truths that it is not good for man to be alone? All creation, every living thing, was created male and female, for God had already commanded them to be fruitful and multiply. On the sixth day, as stated, he made male and female, but now we are getting into the details of how he did that.  First, he made a man and gave him charge over the garden to tend it, for the garden provided all the man needed for food. However, this man was alone; there was no suitable helper or helpmate. God formed the man from the dust or dirt of the land with his own hands and breathed life into him, but he did something different when he made the woman. He took a rib from the man's side to make the woman. First, we believe that was an important act of God with a specific purpose. The Hebrew word used for the suitable helper is Ezer, which means aid, one who helps, and when combined with the word for mate, which is in the Hebrew, Neged, which has many uses, but in the context it is used to mean parallel to, or in front of, opposite, from before the eyes of, opposite to. In other words, as the woman was taken from the man, they are not the same, but quite different. Nevertheless, God determined that the woman's expressed purpose was to aid the man. That is an extremely unpopular concept in Western culture. Because she was made from a rib, or the side of man, it appears that God wanted the woman to walk at man's side, or that they were to walk side by side as equal creations of God, but with different functions. God did not take a bone from the man's head to put the woman in charge of him, nor a bone from his foot to put the woman subject to him, as some Eastern cultures have established. Side by side, to walk together, with the woman being the aid to the man. Without being chauvinistic, we have, for the most part, lost that truth in our modern culture in several ways. First, it is not good for man to be alone; this applies when men are chosen to serve the Lord in some ministry. The overseer must be the husband of one wife, meaning a single man would not be called into ministry, for he has no aide mate. Second, this world has gone so far from God's truth, with men trying to be women and women trying to be men. This is true in both the gender sense and the purpose sense. In our culture, we have witnessed the equality of men and women taken out of the context of God. God made the woman and brought her to the man. It is that simple, but we will see how the man responded to the woman God brought to him. We could see this as man and his helper, or living side by side. 

God's Paradise

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

GOD'S PARADISE

Gen 2:8-17

8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground — trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10 A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12(The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush.   14 The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. 15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

NIV

The first truth is that man's attempt, as intellectual as they think they are, is only a feeble attempt at best to discover the location of the Garden of Eden, and the current names, if in fact they are relevant, of the four rivers. This place and its rivers will never be found, just as the ark of the covenant. The garden in the east, Eden, was a specific place created by God for the express purpose of placing the man he formed in a paradise that supplied all his needs. We should consider the future paradise that Jesus has prepared for those who follow him, those who are born again. There will be another physical place created by God, the Son, which will come down from heaven. It is the new city of Jerusalem that will rest on the new earth. Just as there are many opinions about where the garden was, there are just as many about what this new city looks like. Ours is just that, an opinion, but we cannot help but think because God appeared to Moses on Mt Sinai, referred to as the Mountain of God, this new city will be a Mountain of God, only its base will be fifteen hundred miles long and wide, and just as high, with a great high and wide wall around it. The point is that it is a paradise where God will place his people, where every need will be met. From the description, there will be many trees of life, bearing fruit that will never perish. However, there will be no tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We know what happened to Adam and his helpmate Eve, as they were deceived by the serpent through the influence of Satan. This is the choice every person must make in their life. To eat from the tree of life, representing the influence of Jesus in their lives, and live, or eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, representing the influence of Satan in their lives, and surely they will die. Of course, there is the question of believers accepting the influence of Jesus in our lives; we are constantly faced with temptations by Satan, but that is all they are, attempts to draw us away from Jesus. Sure, we are not perfect beings, as God intended Adam to be; his fall, his disobedience, his sin is upon us all, yet Jesus came to give us a fresh start, a new life, so we live under his influence. Let us live so that we will be in God's paradise. 

The Breath of Life

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

THE BREATH OF LIFE

Gen 2:4-7

4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens —  5 and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, 6 but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground —  7 the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

NIV

We cannot tell for certain, but from all this account of what the earth, or ground, or land was like before any rain, we must only ponder what the face of the earth was like.  Because there was only a mist, which is a more accurate translation of the Hebrew, there would have been no soil erosion from the mountains. We are not told if there were rivers, raging waters, like the Colorado, that would have eroded the Grand Canyon, or if God formed it just for his own pleasure, just as when he formed the great peaks of the Himalayas. But now he formed man. Interestingly, the Hebrew word for man is 'adam, which is also the name of the first man, Adam.  Because God formed man from the dust of the earth, what makes it so wonderful is that the Hebrew word for dust, or ground, is 'adamah, which then makes 'adam a form of 'adamah. This brings to mind what Solomon wrote about the fact that we were made from the dust and will return to dust, it is the cycle of life, that we are no different or have any advantage over the animals, that all with the breath of life experience the same end. However, God has another thought regarding what will happen to the man he formed from the ground. Because he formed us in his own image, we are different from all other living things. We are the only creation of God that is aware of itself, or sentient. We might want to make certain species of the animal kingdom aware of themselves, but they all function on the instincts God instilled in them. Man is the only one who was formed from the dust of the ground into their own image. We can see that as a triune form, Spirit, soul, and body, or we can see that as we are the only ones who are sentient, aware of how we were formed by the hand of God and how he breathed his breath into our nostrils, giving us life. This means every breath we take is the breath of God. Some have said that the sound of our inhales and exhales is the word, Yahweh. Whatever it sounds like, we know without a doubt that God breathed life into us. 

Rest

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

REST

 

Gen 2:1-3

2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. 2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

NIV

God had finished all that he had determined he would do regarding everything he had created. There was nothing else to create, so he stopped, or rested from all his work. This is the Hebrew word Shabath, which literally means "to desist from exertion, to cease from labor." It is often translated to mean that you should rest from what you are doing. The Jews celebrate Shabbat and use the phrase Shalom Shabbat, meaning a perfect Shabbat. It is a holy day of rest observed from the evening of Saturday to sunset of Friday. Some of the orthodox persuasion have taken a rest from work to the extent that they will not push a button to turn a light on or off or to summon an elevator. God made it very clear in the Law recorded in Leviticus what the rules for the Sabbath are. God made the seventh day clean, sanctified, holy. We, believers, have changed the Jewish custom of observing Shabath on the seventh day to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus on the first day of the week. We might say that Sunday is a holy day, with some Christians believing that it is the day of rest God intended for us to desist from all work. But Sunday has nothing to do with the seventh day when God rested from all his work. We have made Sunday whatever we want it to mean; however, it is, in the purest sense, the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. We serve a risen Savior, He's in the world today, we know that He is living, no matter what men might say. You ask us how we know He lives. He lives within our hearts. Yet, because God made the seventh day holy, we have taken that to mean that Sunday is our holy day. Yet, we do not follow the Law for the Jews regarding Shabath. Instead, we have developed our own set of rules to govern the first day of the week. Because of our culture, some are required to work on Sunday, but that does not preclude them from celebrating Jesus' resurrection in their hearts and minds. Many of us have set the rule of attending church for one hour on that day of celebration. Does that fulfill our sense of obligation, or keep our Sabbath holy? Since in the truest sense of the day,  because God rested from all his work, we should enter into God's rest, as the author of Hebrews clarifies that we should cease from our work. That might apply to our labor for wages, or our employment-type work, but it can also apply to the work of good deeds. If we have entered God's rest, then we rest in the work of God, his redemptive work, his provisional and protective work. We can rest assured of his faithfulness to his word and that we will experience resurrection. What work can we do to secure our position in the resurrection of believers? We can rest in God.