The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 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.’”
“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
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. 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.
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. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life."
~Genesis 3:1-13; 22-24
Culture is a funny thing. It dictates what people say, do, wear, think, and even believe about right and wrong. How do we really know what is right and what is wrong, if everyone in every culture seems to have a different standard? Our culture says that Harry Potter is great. Our culture says that How I Met Your Mother is funny. We tell ourselves that the apple is only slightly poisoned; eating just one or two bites, or even eating the whole apple, won't kill you. Just don't eat too much, right? But all of this carnal stuff...it seeps into our lives and slowly kills us. Ruins us. Dishonors us before a great and perfect God.
The Bible says that false prophets, the sexually immoral, and many other people who practice sin as a lifestyle should be severely punished for their crimes. Do we recognize how important sin is to God, how deeply He feels about such things? He doesn't say, 'Oh, it's okay. That isn't entirely bad, it's only partly bad. It'll just poison you a little, so go for it. Have fun. Enjoy all of those things because they make you feel good temporarily.' He's actually really clear in His views of sin. We, as believers and (hopefully) followers of Christ, should be equally clear about our stand against sin. There's no middle ground when it comes to sin, no area where something is only partly bad. It's either right or it's wrong. It's either pleasing in the eyes of the Lord, or it isn't. If it is bad, we are commanded by God to kill that sin and have no more of it.
But, you see, Satan will use things that look harmless to get us away from Christ. I was told recently, "If Satan can't get you to sin, he will get you to be distracted." We spend more time on Pinterest and Facebook than we do with our LORD in His word, in prayer, and in honest fellowship with other believers. The apple looks good at first-- it'll taste good, too. We'll eat it and see that we don't immediately drop dead. So, we'll go back for seconds, thirds, fourths, etc. until we've been fully and irrevocably poisoned.
The truth of the matter is that our sin separates us from God. There's no other way about it, and there's no "relative truth" to it. Even after we're saved, we can still fall into sin-- often times, this happens without us knowing it. Putting trash into our lives by the things we watch, listen to, read, and talk about...these things all detract from our relationship with Christ. We have been given the precious and beautiful opportunity to serve God and to be used by Him in great ways, but we squander it when we turn from the things of Him and set our eyes on the things of this world.
Seriously. You can't take movies with you to heaven. You can't take that hot hollywood actor to heaven. You can't take your Pinterest board or all your followers on Instagram, all the music that's filled with profanities or immoral content-- none of it. So when we spend our time focusing on those things, all we're doing is playing in a dumpster full of trash. We roll around in it, we eat it and fill our stomachs with garbage. We make it our house and live in it. God is offering us a shining gold crown and beautiful clothes (better than any fashion icon's latest trend!) and instead we trade it for rotten banana peels and soiled diapers. Yuck.
At first we may see the trash we're stepping into and think, 'This isn't so good.' But the longer you stay there, the less it'll bother you. You'll get used to the smell, and after a week with no bath you probably won't notice the dirt and grime so much. You will get used to eating those rotten foods, and the garbage heap you call your house won't look so bad because you'll get used to it. Is that really what we want? I know it's not what I want, but without Christ's daily help to guide me and keep me on track, that's where I end up.
Despite what culture tells us-- that the garbage heap is fun and looks great and everybody's doing it so you might as well join in on the great times-- those things really do ensnare us. We're all in danger of being pulled into the trash can of life. The world is already there, and they're having the time of their lives. But think about this: If you ever saw some crazy people having a party in a dumpster, covered in muck, would you really want to join? I wouldn't...I'd run in the opposite direction!
I challenge you to take a healthy evaluation of your life and ask yourself if there are things in your life that should be given up and taken out to better your life. I know I did; after hearing several very profound messages related to this subject (studying through 2 Timothy 2:14-26), I deleted my Facebook and Pinterest apps from my phone. Let me tell you, it's only been a day since I did this and already I am finding it very difficult to fill my time with other things. I didn't realize how much time I spend away from Christ and glued to worthless things until I got rid of them.
So I ask you...what is something in your life you can give up in order to live a better, fuller, more righteous life for Christ?
"How many things don't matter when we think of eternity?...If we believe what [God] says about hell, that should move us...Eternity is very real; everybody dies. Are you prepared to meet the LORD?" ~Pastor Eric Cartier
~Laurel
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