Our Great Temptation

The third chapter of the Bible must be read in the context of it's original hearers. Redeemed slaves wandering in the wilderness wondering if they can trust the God who has called them to an entirely new kind of life after 400 years of knowing only hard labor and harsh treatment.

The original temptation speaks to everything they knew of in Egypt. A ruler who thought he was god and in charge of them... a renegade shepherd leading them where they do not yet see... and miles and miles of desert sand.

Genesis 3:5 (ESV) For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Every temptation is rooted in believing God is holding you back. Jealousy toward others is being convinced that God had skipped over you to bless "them." Lust is taking sexual gratification on your own personal terms. Pride is believing you know better than God. Murder is eliminating the competition. Stealing is deciding you know better than God what you should have. Idolatry is forming God in your own image and idea of what He should be. 

 "God is holding me back", we tell ourselves either consciously or subconsciously and then we disobey. 

 But what this picture presents for us in Genesis 3 is that God calls us to obey Him believing He knows what is best for us and that He longs to be good to us. Obedience is not harsh labor, that's what sin and pride produce as evidence in Egypt. Obedience is confident trust that God loves you and cares for you. And when we obey it is rooted in the Fatherly love and care of our God. 

 Again we must read this as if we were wandering in the desert with Moses... because sometimes that where life will lead us. Will we trust? Will we be patient? Will we obey the voice of the Lord when He says move boldly into the land? 

 It is a very helpful reminder that God is for you not against you. His purpose for you is peace and harmony.

Yet we are also reminded that our nature in Adam is constant rebellion against God and must be destroyed only by one who is able to overcome. Jesus Christ is our victor. He is the one who passed the test Adam failed in the Garden, this time a Garden called Gethsemane and put himself under the leading of the Father even to the death on a Cross. The One who was God became sin so that we could once again become one with God - atonement.

How beautifully He trusted God for us!
How wonderfully the Father sent Him for us!

How can we NOT trust Him?


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