Or perhaps better said; did Eve believe God loved her enough to trust God at His Word? When, she was tempted in her thoughts, did she seek the truth of “perhaps” God was protecting her through His Word as thoughts come to her tempting her … “to instead consider” that God may be “holding out on her?” (If you missed part 1, click here)
Temptations will come TO us, BUT we cannot allow temptations (evil thoughts) to come IN us, because temptations are purposed to consume us! God’s way is purposed to FREE us and we can trust God! God’s Way is grafted in us through His Blood –yet, we still have that same oh human nature to overcome … Watch your fruit to maintain your assurance that you are in step with the Holy Spirit trusting God:
The 9 fruits of the Spirit:
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.
In entertaining tempting thoughts –let’s learn that Eve made an unfaithful and harmful choice that required a mind set on God to overcome the temptation that was calculated and purposely delivered to her, and also to us, at just the right time and in just the right way to sway our “mind set” from trusting God, to instead planning our own way!
Temptations come to us to be right–no different than our history teaches they do! However, we can overcome all things in our life by the blood of Jesus! Life is not about being right … Life is found in Righteousness, which is IN Christ alone!
Today, we have the same two choices that Adam and Eve faced in the Garden of Eden:
- Trust God and choose Life and also choose blessings!
- Or we are choosing to trust the Temptation –taking matters into our own hands, based on our own limited ability.
–Adam and Eve ate the apple! What are the “apples” we warned of in Today?”
We are not created to live without love … God is love … We were not created to live without God! We were not created to separate from God! In addition, we were created out of pure love, and with love comes a free will to choose a life of innocence with God. Today, because of Jesus, believers and unbelievers alike can choose life and blessings through our faith –Faith is not always easy when we don’t get what we want … and cannot see God’s plan of a better future through the same eyes seeing and feeling all the wrong that comes at us in this life! However, Faith is not seeing through natural eyes –Faith is seeing through spiritual believing eyes!
Perhaps, your temptation is to doubt what God has done for you, with a purpose to make you remain guilty or feel unworthy of unconditional love and forgiveness? I encourage you to talk to God, come to Jesus and find out how much He loves you!
9 If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved.
Romans 10:9-10 NLT
Temptations come to tempt us away from God on purpose by seeking the illusion that there is more to life than life with God.
Envy and selfish ambition…
When Eve ate the apple, were her thoughts on God? Or, were her thoughts filled with envy and selfish ambition?
- Did Eve’s actions reflect a pure love for God from within her heart?
- OR was she reflecting the love for something else?
- Perhaps the love of “the mere thought of more than God had already given”…This is the temptation! … “For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice (James 3:16).”
Temptation is disguised as power and authority that meets an emotional desire …but by far falls under what God has already given!
–Temptation does not include God!
The MORE in Temptation = Equals = Desiring More than God, which ironically also will cause people to seek less!
- Was Eve with God in her decision and choice? Was Adam? Are you? –Or, was Eve with herself and Adam with Eve?
A grave choice was made that day: Adam and Eve chose to directly disobey God and justify their actions. Today we do the same –and we all need to confess Jesus to overcome! …Or else we are denying the Truth once again…God calls us to “Confess and Believe” so that we can repent and be set free –otherwise we are denying we have an issue in our heart that Jesus died for!
And don’t get caught up in the sin death (in otherwords what guilt will do to you) … Rather, rejoice in the death of sin in your life! -Jesus is not on that cross anymore… LIVE with God covered with the powerful blood of Jesus to overcome death and all sin, because Jesus rose again to give us LIFE with God!
- Anything we “try to justify” in our heart “as right” is wrong, because we are justified by God alone through our faith in the blood of Jesus –God accomplished a tremendous act of love and power FOR US that day!
- If we TRY to justify our real emotions to do as we please, we BEST seek the TRUTH from God and get His understanding , SO that we can CHOOSE a better way!
- With God our strength and ability in Christ Jesus is Blessed and far greater than any illusion known to man –life on earth with peace and joy as it is in Heaven & life beyond this life on earth!
- God calls us to patiently walk blessed –choosing blessings; but Satan screams NOW to rush us around God.
We are created by God for all good and righteous things and God has equipped us to think and achieve! God has made us and placed in us inspirations and dreams of more to create and be like Him, but not be God –there is a difference! Every time we take matters in our own hands, we are choosing to dismiss that God is God –Inevitably, our actions are saying something to God:
- We need You Father God; and Father, You alone are God!
- Or, (Father, help me speak the truth) our actions tell God we are god enough over our life …
The temptation comes to us from the jealous evil one to get us to choose to fail! The evil one wanted to be God and forgot who he was –a created angel by God. Could you imagine being like “an only child” –Satan was one of God’s most beautiful and musical angels! He was created special –and then God created man in His own image to love …
Personally, I believe Satan became jealous when God wanted children –and thus devised a plan to hurt God and attempt to ruin mankind –us; However, God had a plan all along! We are God’s children as we come to Him under grace by God’s very own blood through His Son.
Learning from our history, let every decision begin at the foot of the Cross …
- “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, (Galatians 6:14).”
- “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).”
“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon (Matthew 6:24).”
These are very strong words! God’s Word is not to be negotiated or bargained! …OR ELSE: we will either, hate the one, and love the other; or else we will hold to the one, and despise the other. Profound WORD from God…
Try inserting “God” [in the either or] and replace “your tempting opponents” [in the other] …flip around and read both ways … ♥ blessings to you ♥
“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon (Matthew 6:24).”
Rationalization is a great enemy of the believer’s walk with God…
Did God somehow love Eve wrong?
God “commanded” Adam and Eve that they were “free” to eat any fruit in the garden, except the fruit from one: The tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil and warned them “for when you eat from it you will certainly die (Genesis 2:17).”
Look at all the evil that has happened with our knowledge of evil since that day; but at that moment, did Adam and Eve really trust God? Why would God lie?
- God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill (Numbers 23:19)?
- God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged (Hebrews 6:18).
I do not believe God was surprised with disobedience –then or now! Creation is all part of God’s great plan to have children and raise us up to maturity –and in Today, for as long as God calls this day Today, we still learn from history’s account and from our own daily mistakes, with a purpose to become more like Jesus and grow nearer to God!
We each have a God-gifted opportunity to live well in God’s divine and All-Knowing Wisdom –If we so choose to trust God and believe! BUT, do we fall short of Trusting God sometimes still Today? History proves God’s agape love and faithfulness toward us –to encourage us to believe in HIS forgiving, understanding and unconditional love; NOT for permission to continue in and deny our sins against God.
Even when we strive to do right by God and love Him in our heart -don’t we still fall short of the glory of the LORD –sometimes & if we are honest daily? All God asked of Eve and of Adam was to obey one simple rule for their –and our own good: Trust Him and live well!
God loved Adam and Eve well in spite of their mistakes–As God has always loved [and continues to faithfully love] us well!
LOVE is revealed through our actions … our actions are our worship of God –our revealed trust in Him:
–This is whom God Is:
1 John 1:5-2:2
New International Version (NIV)
Light and Darkness, Sin and Forgiveness
5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all[a] sin.
8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.
2 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
I hope this was a blessing to you in your Created Today!
Love in Christ,
Karen Rowe
Founder and Author:
Hope in Today Ministries, Inc. | The Train Whistle, Sounding the Call of God’s Love
www.hopeintoday.com | www.thetrainwhistle.com
To Contact me by email: karen@hopeintoday.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg-DnWTZKHg&feature=youtu.be
