Dear People Who Keep Company With God,
In the beginning there were two trees in the garden and there still are. It tells us the Tree of Life was located in the midst of the garden. Literally, it was located in the very center of the garden. The other tree, the tree of knowledge of good and evil was located somewhere nearby (Gen. 2:9).
God told Adam and Eve they could eat of every tree in the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:16-17). Do you ever wonder why God put that tree in the garden in the first place if He did not want Adam eating from it? We all have, and I think it has to do with the fact that God created us with a free will. God wanted a relationship with us and real relationships are based on mutual consent.
By and large we get to choose our close relationships and aren’t we glad we do. No one forced me to love Becky and marry her. I chose to love and marry her. It is the same way with God. No one forced me to love Christ or follow Him. I choose to love and follow Him. I choose Him out of a response to Him choosing and loving me of His own free will. God did not have to love any of us, but He does.
Speaking of choices, Adam made a bad one, we all have, but some bad choices are worse than others. He made the granddaddy of all bad choices. As a consequence he began to experience a new feeling, fear in its many forms such guilt, insecurity, shame, paranoia, suspicion and on and on. What a rude awakening, but that wasn’t all. These new feelings perverted the way Adam felt about God. It made God seem more like the devil. Suddenly God seemed angry, resentful, unjust, unloving, distant and not so good. It was a catastrophe of world-class proportion.
As a result of these new feelings Adam was afraid to be in the Presence of God. For a little while He could still hear the voice of God, but over time the voice grew fainter and fainter (Gen. 3:8-10). In time, the Presence and the Voice became something only special people could access mostly prophets, priest and kings, but occasionally a pheasant girl, slave or some seemly random person. There was one notable exception for about 33 years during King David’s rein. He set up the Tabernacle of David so all people could have access to the living Presence of the Lord. None of this was ever the original design. When Adam lost the Voice and the Presence basically, we all lost it.
The good news is we got it back. The Bible reveals that the message of the Cross is the power of God for those who will believe and receive it (1 Cor. 1:18). Now certainly that means we will go to heaven and not hell when we die. That is good news, but it means more. It means heaven on earth. It means what Adam had in the garden is restored to us. The message of the Cross is the power to restore us to the Presence and Voice of God. It restores us back to the original design. It restores us to our walk with God, our relationship with Him.
God paid a huge price to get us out of the catastrophe Adam created. His love for us is a very costly love.
Many Blessings, BW