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Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Don't Bite The Apple!
Don't Bite The Apple!
(Note: The forbidden fruit was not really an apple lah the Bible just says "fruit" - but since tradition has called it an apple we'll just call it an apple for convenience!)
God created us for a relationship with Him. But if all God wanted was a relationship with us, He'd just rapture us into Heaven as soon as we were saved. He doesn't because we were also put here on earth to SHINE for God so that others may know Him too!
But we can't shine unless we are free of habitual sin ourselves. Yet many Christians are not able to shake off some sinful habits which still enslave them after being saved, so that they try to act 'clean' in front of others but are still struggling with sin and are 'half-in and half-out' of the light, so to speak. This weakens our ability to shine for God - and is precisely what the Enemy will try to do.
Some of the strategies of the Enemy to tempt us to sin are illustrated in Genesis 3, the story of Eve eating the forbidden fruit. Recognising them helps us to guard against them:
1. Genesis 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'?"
The Enemy will prompt us to justify sin to appear not really wrong although in our spirit we know it is - eg justifying premarital or homosexual sex by saying that because it feels 'right' therefore it's "natural" and permissible - 'not really sin'.
2. Genesis 3:4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman.
The Enemy will fool us into thinking that there can be such a thing as sin that will not lead to death. But "the wages of sin is death", as Romans 6:23 puts it. Not necessarily physical death (nor, if one has been saved, complete spiritual death), but every sin produces death in some way - death to relationships, to health, to personal peace and joy etc.
3. Genesis 3:5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
The Enemy will try to make us mistrust God by sowing the suspicion in our minds that God is forbidding us to do something because he's conspiring in some way against us to withhold good things from us, that he's really a bad God, someone who can't be trusted, who only seeks to have control over us and doesn't care about our welfare. These lies produce the mentality, "If God knew that this was so desirable then He shouldn't have created it in the first place to tempt me" - we excuse ourselves from succumbing to temptation by by blaming God for creating it, and what's more we blame God for creating misery in our lives by showing us something beautiful and not letting us have it.
This has actually been my (Joanna's) personal greatest struggle in my life. I tend to focus on the one thing that I can't have or can't do according to God's law and end up full of anguish, asking God "Why can't I when I want it so much?" At such times God seems a spoilsport, withholding pleasure when it seems right. All Christians go through times like these when we feel that God's law is spoiling our fun.
It's focusing on the few things that we can't have or we can't do, though, that produces embitterment towards God and a surly attitude that destroys our relationship with Him. In reality, by forbidding us to commit sins, God is saving us from rotten fruit that will make us ill - and we fail to notice that He has made so many other beautiful things for us - He has given us all the rest of the garden, all the other fruits, from which to eat. The fraction of things that look 'good' but in which we are not permitted to indulge is really very small - just one tree compared to the rest of the garden. But we make the mistake of focusing on just that one tree and agonising about its forbidden fruit and thinking, "I'm so deprived!" when in reality we are not deprived at all.
4. Genesis 3:6 ...the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye...
Sin often looks very attractive. Eg. Premarital sex and promiscuity is glamourised in all forms of media, notably the movies, and music and poetry as well. Why does God allow sin to look so beautiful and be such a strong temptation?
God allowed choices so that He could be glorified when we choose the right thing. Hsia Pin used a simple tongue-in-cheek analogy of a man and a woman who are the only inhabitants of a desert island, with absolutely no other temptations - and over the years they just naturally get married since there's no one else around (a la "The Blue Lagoon"). No choice there. But if there're two guys, Man A and Man B, on the island, and the girl has to choose, and she chooses Man A, then Man A is glorified by her choice! In the same way, God would not be glorified if we would automatically choose good, whether because sin were unattractive or if we were 'programmed' to choose good every time. But sin is allowed to look attractive - the Enemy is allowed to paint a picture of how good it looks to us - so that by choosing God anyway, we are demonstrating that we love God more - that He is even more attractive to us, even more beautiful than the sham beauty of temptation, more real.
* * *
In summary, the purpose for which God created us was to shine for Him. So, choose Him! Glorify Him through the decisions that we make in our lives, what we choose to use our lives for. Don't let there be the death in our lives - the loss of hope, of human relationships, of joy and of love - that comes from choosing sin.
the alleged @ 3:06 AM
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