Eve's First Mistake ⋆ A Delightful Glow

I am so excited to bring you this guest post from my dear blogger friend, Jenni. She has been on a blogging break, but her words are a blessing and you would enjoy going over and browsing through her blog. She has lots of inspiration. Her words. Her ideas. Her projects. The fun things she does with her kids. Her terrific sense of humor. I’m so glad I’ve met Jenni. She has blessed my life.

Today she is sharing her words and thoughts with us. Thank-you, Jenni!

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Have you ever answered a question that you obviously knew the answer to in an incorrect way? I’m guilty of not listening to my children when we’re in the van, especially if my hubby is driving. I tend to zone out and sometimes will say, “I don’t know,” to questions they ask. Today my husband called me out on it when our little girl was asking what the words to ‘Jesus Loves the Little Children’. I had sung it to her twice and then she asked me to repeat the words. I said, “I don’t know,” to which he replied, “You just sang it to her twice!” Oh yes, I did…oops!

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say…{fill in the blank}” Genesis 3:1

Genesis 3 tells us that the serpent was more crafty than any other beast that God had made. He asked her, “Did God actually say that you can’t eat of any tree in the garden?”

He has twisted God’s Word but not enough to send up red flags.

Now Eve knew the answer to this. The correct answer was, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Genesis 2:16

Instead she answers, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”

That’s not what God said. She changed his directions from not eating the fruit to not being able to touch the tree at all.

We don’t know whether she received these instructions from God himself or second-hand from Adam. Eve wasn’t yet created when God gave Adam these specifications. But since God walked with them in the garden perhaps this was a warning He had given them repeatedly.

Either way, she took God’s Word and changed it. All because of the serpent craftily asking her a question. And she didn’t even have Candy Crush to blame for distracting her. She might as well have said, “I don’t know”.

The Garden was a perfect place and Mr. & Mrs. Firstman had a pretty charmed life. No weeds to pull, no harvest to can, no wolves to fend off. They had very little responsibilities other than :

1. Don’t eat from that one tree

AND

2. Be fruitful and multiply

So….yeah, they were pretty much having a lifelong honeymoon.

Anyways, reading this and teaching this to my Sunday school class yesterday got me thinking. Eve simply misinterpreted God’s command from don’t eat to don’t touch. This wasn’t her sin. This wasn’t what caused her to have pain in childbirth, want to lead her husband, or return to dust. Her sin was in desiring to be like God and accepting the devil’s lie. But it made me wonder….

What has God told me that I don’t believe or have tweaked for my convenience?

Eve obviously didn’t believe God when He told her not to eat it. Have you ever had a friend say, “This tastes terrible, here try it.” And then you tried it? Yeah, me either. That’s a lie, I’ve totally done that.

We have the benefit of having the Bible at our fingertips. And not just the Bible but Google, Biblegateway and endless other websites & apps where we can look up exactly what we’re looking for in the Bible. Eve didn’t have this. This is totally my interpretation but did Eve tap her temple or rub her chin, trying hard to remember what exactly God had said? Did she retrace her steps, “Ok, I was standing here and God stood there and said…”? So does that give us more responsibility than Eve? I don’t know but I do know that the serpent is still as crafty now as he was then.

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Even though Eve was living this dream honeymoon, in a world without sin, she still had the propensity to sin within her because she desired to have the knowledge God possesses. We cannot just trust that God is God and we are not, can we?

So, enough about Eve, we know she screwed up. But what about us? What promises of God or commands of God do we twist to justify our actions or desires? Some of them may be large and blatant, or may be tiny and imperceptive. I submit to you that Satan specializes in tiny and imperceptive with the Christian.

We think God doesn’t see us, know us, or care about us. But His Word says:

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Think about this in other ways, how many of us have heard and repeated the phrase, “God helps those who help themselves”? Really? Is there Scripture to back that up?

I’m going to refrain from giving too many examples because we all struggle in different areas. What is a huge hurdle for me is nothing you would think of twice. What consumes your thoughts may not something I wrestle with.

So this week, think about the little ways that the Deceiver is at work in our lives. Every time Satan whispers a lie in your ear, pull out your Bible and line it up. I know we all know to do this but really do it! We give Satan too much of our time and attention. What tiny ways are we tweaking what God really said?