Adam and Eve never fell in love with God. When God created them they had the potential to love God. God had loved them, and He tried to reveal himself to them; but like unappreciative children they fell in love with pleasure, comfort, and some of the artwork without ever really appreciating the Artist. In fact, they were so distracted that they began to ignore God. They were like those who listened to Jesus from afar while he gave them free bread, but unlike the true disciples who kept coming to Jesus to ask the meaning of the Parables, they were content with a superficial relationship – gimme, gimme, gimme, but don’t ask anything in return! Just as in Jesus’s day, many people saw his miracles, his kindness. He healed their sicknesses and diseases, and provided for their needs. And yet, the majority of people rejected him. They were so preoccupied with other agendas that they had no time to listen to God’s agenda. And in John 6, many disciples stopped following Jesus. They only wanted free bread, but they didn’t want a close relationship with Him. “13 The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught. 14 Therefore …the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.” 15 Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the LORD, who do their work in darkness and think, “Who sees us? Who will know?” (Isaiah 25:13-15) How can I insist that Adam and Eve never knew God when they spent time in his presence? They were like a Christian who had Bibles, but never meditate on the words, who go to a service once in awhile, but never really listen. They have a superficial relationship, but when that relationship is tested the evidence shows that they never loved God. Jesus gave us two keys for proving our love. 1) We listen! You can’t love someone if you don’t know their heart. And there are more ways to listen than hearing words. We can observe actions – which speak louder than words. Jesus cared. Jesus wept over people’s suffering. Jesus made himself available. He washed his disciple’s feet. He took care of their needs. He basically lived the Love of God before their eyes. The twelve fell in love with Him and remained with him, while many others only came to Him for what they could get. Others ignored him all together. But in ignoring the messenger, mankind also ignored God the Father – intentionally – because they took him for granted. How did the 12 display their love? They spent time with Him. They listened to Him. And they kept his Commandments! In the Garden of Eden, God gave Adam and Eve only one commandment: “8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. …15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” (Genesis 2: 8-17) The command was simple. It was easy to follow. But what did that command represent? It represented “trust” – which required very simple observation. 1) Who is speaking? 2) What is their nature? Are they liars or truthful? Have they let me down or always kept their word? Are they kind? Are they loving? Are they deceptive? Romans 1 (see Below) tells us that God’s nature can be clearly be seen through the things He has created. Animals have instincts to protect their young infants. There is beauty everywhere. We can see it in our children, in the seas, skies, mountains. In fact there are people who spend their lives simply observing and falling in love with one aspect of Creation. Adam and Eve had no excuse for disobeying God. They saw his glory face-to-face. They had access to speak to them at will. …And when the serpent came, they could have and should have gone to God and asked for a clarification if they truly loved God and had a close relationship. The serpent questioned the very motives of God – insinuating he was stingy and didn’t want them to enjoy the fruit from ANY tree in the Garden, and then by insinuating that HE was a liar who wanted to withhold a good gift and blessing from them. And so, he deceived a being who was already LIKE GOD at the moment she was created – that she would be LIKE GOD through disobedience. The question the serpent asked was an accusation. Think about that. Would you believe it if you had a loving relationship with your parents, and someone came and falsely accused them of being liars and cheats? Wouldn’t you give them the benefit of the doubt based upon your past experience? And if they threw confusion in your mind, wouldn’t you clarify the accusations with your parents – if you loved and trusted them – rather than take a strangers words? Look at the tone of Jesus’s words below – and in it he makes a profound statement – anyone who loves him will keep his commandments! Adam and Eve had one commandment to keep. And they didn’t keep it. Therefore they never really loved God and had a superficial relationship with God. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” 8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” 9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. 15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.” 22 Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?” 23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. 25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. 28 “You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. 29 I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. 30 I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me, 31 but he comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me.” (John 14) How is it that they didn’t fall in love with God? They had the same kind of options we have in this life. We choose what we will focus upon – and if we focus on the wrong things and get the wrong priorities, we deceive ourselves. What can be known about God is clear to us IF we don’t SUPPRESS the truth. And why would anyone SUPPRESS the truth – wickedness in our hearts – if we don’t like what God asks of us. And in suppressing the truth, we become self-deceived. And instead of worshiping God, we begin worshiping the creation – men, women, fast cars, money. “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” (Romans 1:18-21) The Bible never suggests that God wants to be liked – like a teen who tries to impress their friends. God loves us and desires to be loved. And so he told his true disciples that they were no longer servants, but friends. And as friends they abided in God’s love. The sign of a true friend is that what matters to God matters to us as well. And so Jesus commanded his disciples to love one another as He loved them. “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other. 18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20 Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21 They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. 24 If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. 25 But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.” (John 15) Adam and Eve had every reason to fall in love with God. And if they had done so it would have protected them from the serpent’s lies. Like so many, they loved the creation, but never fell in love with the Creator – something we must choose to do, but something God will never compel us to do. Pastor Nafty
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 07:23:24 +0000
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