“I can’t obey God!”

“He asks too much of me!”

“He can’t possibly expect me to do everything He says!?”

eve

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Genesis 2:16-17

 

 

 

Honestly, what’s so hard about this? He put that tree right in the smack-dab middle of the Garden. He didn’t move it around every night while they were sleeping or hide it until they got close and then jump out with it yelling “CANT TOUCH THIS!” God said “You see that tree…that one right there…can’t miss it, right…hey listen, don’t touch that one, okay? Every other tree is yours, but this one is a no-no.”

Are we really going to say it’s hard? The problem with keeping God’s commands is not the commands, it’s the one keeping the commands. We make it hard because we don’t always want to obey Him. Sometimes we’d rather just take our lives into our own hands and eat that apple (or whatever the fruit was). You stand with your cart on the grocery store isle. You just need one thing of jelly beans and then you can go. But your kid is crying in the front of the cart and there’s a lady there, bless her heart, who is blocking the way, doesn’t see you and can’t decide to get Ketchup or Catsup.

You’re supposed to stay calm. You’re supposed to be patient and considerate. But sometimes you just want to scream “move it!” Sometimes you just want to pluck that apple and dig in.

But you’re not allowed.

And when you do, you fall into the same snare that snagged Eve.  Now you’re thinking “Eve wasn’t mad, she just wanted what she couldn’t have.” Listen: Eve’s problem was–in that moment–she loved herself more than God. She wanted all the sweet-sounding promises Satan had tempted her with (which were lies). She loved herself, just like the frustrated person who loves himself more than the person he screams at because COME ON LADY KETCHUP AND CATSUP ARE THE SAME THING CAN I GET MY JELLY BELLYS PLEASE!

Eve’s pride (which is at the root of sin) caused her to disobey God, and bring her under the condemnation God had warned her about. And yet, though God said she would “die” she lived on. Why? Someone might argue that Eve became “spiritually dead” when she sinned against God, and that is certainly true. But God’s warning involved physical death; the word “die” means “capital punishment.” Eve did not “die” in that sense.

Why? We’ll discuss that tomorrow.

In the meantime, consider that Eve did die spiritually (for a time, before she was restored to God). Though Satan promised her she would be like God if she sinned, she instead became like Satan. She gave into a prideful desire and spiritually died.

Let’s not make the same mistake. Remember your Father in Heaven, control your impulses, let cooler heads prevail and remember that you can obey God; you just have to remember, when the temptation comes, to love Him more than anything.