Wednesday, January 2, 2019

January 3, 2019

"But the Lord God called out to the man. "Where are you?" he asked." Genesis 3:9


Intellectually we know that God hates sin. And we know that we should too. But, there is something deep in our being that finds it easier to love sin than to love God. That "something" deep within us is called our "sin nature". Genesis 3 tells the sad story of where that nature came from.

The sin nature is a perversion of the free will with which God graced Adam and Eve. That will that had drawn them to God and connected them with God, was twisted against God when they disobeyed Him. You and I have been born with that nature having inherited it from them. 

Nowhere in the Bible do we see the ugliness of sin any more clearly than in the Garden where God's grace is so evident. That ugliness is so evident because the consequences of sin are so clear. I want to discuss those over the next few posts.

The first consequence I want to focus on is that sin separates.

Creation was all about God wanting to be intimately related to the beings He had made and placed in a pristine holy environment. And it was good! Very good! So good that He looked forward to being with them each day and strolling through the paradise of Eden. 

Think about that! A perfectly perfect God (perfect means complete-lacking nothing) longed to be WITh Adam and Eve! This God Who dwelt in perfect unity within the Trinity, still desired to love and be loved by man! Amazingly good news for us!

I want you to wrap your mind around that so that you can hate what their sin did to God - it created a separation between Him and His created beings. Those whom He had created for Himself were now inaccessible to a holy God not able to experience intimate friendship with sinful ones.

While there is no doubt that Adam and Eve were the big losers in this transaction - and us by inheritance - God suffered from their sin as well. His will was frustrated and His plan was sidetracked.

Sin separates you from God. That explains the deep longing in your soul because you were designed and created and wired to live in perfect fellowship with Him. But sin makes that impossible. Until you comprehend this simple but profound truth, the rest of the Bible will make no sense to you. You must clearly come to grips with the bad news of separation before you can glady embrace the good news about salvation.

Paradise was lost. Perfect union was shattered. In the presence of absolute love and grace, sin is exposed in all its hideousness.

Sin caused us to give up on God, but it did not cause God to give up on us. He still longs for us. He still comes seeking us. As horrible as our sin might be, His love and grace are greater! Though we were helplessly separated from Him, He immediately anounced a plan to reconnect us with Him!

All these years later, God comes to you each morning and longingly calls to you, "Where are you?"

How will you answer?