Encouragement
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God warned Adam that to eat from the tree would bring death. Not believing and trusting God leads us down Adam’s path.
Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, Gen 3:17b-19 ESV
If what Adam faced describes how you feel at times about your life and you have not entered the rest Jesus promised, could it be that you have been eating from the tree? Not literally speaking, Adam and Eve’s sin was unbelief. If they had believed God had their best interest at heart and they would die, they would have never eaten. The same applies to us. While we may believe and have accepted Jesus as our Savior, we still do things that God has warned us will hurt us and others. This is unbelief, and it affects us in this life in a great way.
I am all about crying out to Jesus for help. “Jesus Help” is my favorite prayer. But, if we find ourselves doing this often, stuck in the same turmoil for months, years or our entire life, could it be that we have a foundational problem? Could it be that there are areas of God’s word that we do not believe? Maybe “do not fear”, “do not neglect fellowship with other believers”, “I have plans to prosper you and give you a good life”, “I will remember their sins no more”, or in commandments we incorrectly see as orders instead of their original purpose to guide and protect mankind in this fallen world – Gal 3:24. If we see God’s commands as orders, our fallen nature that still resides in our flesh will rebel.
Sin is unbelief in some area that God’s word warns us about in His Word.
By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, Heb 11:7a ESV
See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. Heb 12:25 ESV
If Jesus is our Lord and Savior, we are not under the law, we are under grace where sin is not imputed. This is something many Christians have a hard time understanding and believing. Just like Satan did not want Adam to believe God, Satan desires that we are not firmly anchored in the truth these verses convey. Any doubt in this area will leave us in fear, tossed and turned by the waves in this fallen world.
For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression. Rom 4:15 ESV
but sin is not counted where there is no law. Rom 5:13b ESV
For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more. Rom 8:12
If we fear that God is counting our sins, and it is somewhat about us instead of all about Jesus, that fear will lead us into sin. Just think about when we sin. Can you see fear as a big motivator? People steal and cheat, fearing they will not have enough. People sin because they fear they are missing something that sin has tempted them with. We lie fearing confrontation or rejection. Adam and Eve feared that God was holding out on them, leading them to listen to Satan. If the enemy can get us to doubt our salvation by making us think it is even a little about us, then after trying very hard to be perfect and failing, the temptation is very great just to give up and dive into sin for a season. Sin is deceitful.
Starting with small areas that a believer sees as insignificant, sin’s (Satan’s) goal is to deceive us over time, harden our hearts little by little and draw us ever further into unbelief in various areas of God’s word. The further we go; the easier sin gets and the worse our life becomes.
The following verses in Hebrews are primarily talking about believing the Gospel to enter God’s rest by using the Old Testament Jews as an example of unbelief. But think of this, the Israelites had already been delivered from the enemy like we were when we trusted in Christ. They were safe and free, but God wanted even more for them. They stumbled into unbelief with God’s gift of the promised land, refusing to enter they never received the best God had for them in this life.
Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Heb 3:12-13 ESV
And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. Heb 3:18 -19 ESV
Instead of the promised land in this life that God wanted them to occupy, they chose to remain among the thorns and thistles Adam had inherited for them. God does not change; he wants the best for us too. We are no longer heirs of Adam. We are co-heirs with Christ. It is our choice to keep eating from the tree or correctly divide the Word and believe God in everything he states, especially in the New Covenant.
Understand that while sin is not imputed, counted against the believer by God, it still causes pain and suffering to us and those around us. Sin is deceitful so for our own good; we should reject it for the lie it always has been and will be.
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