First World Problems

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. (Genesis 1:3 ESV)

I just started a bible reading plan that puts the bible in chronological order. One of the things that immediately stood out to me was how verbal God was in Genesis 1 when He was creating the world. He could have just snapped His fingers, clapped His hands, or did a little head nod and POOF! the world is here. But He chose to speak the world into existence. I counted fifteen times where the bible states, “God said,” while He was creating the universe. God spoke and created the world. God spoke and created the sea and land. God spoke and created the creatures of the sea and air. The only thing that God did not speak into existence is man. The bible says that, “the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” (Gen. 2:7) God almighty breathed life into us. We were created different from the rest of the universe. We were created with purpose, for a purpose. Everything else was created for us, but we were created for God. We were created to know and love God through Christ Jesus.

Our God is a verbal God.

Even after man had sinned against God, He called out to them. Genesis 3:9 says, “But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” God called out to Adam and Eve because they were hiding from Him. They hid because they were afraid. God still calls us today and many of us are hiding. We are hiding from God because we are afraid. Afraid that God will punish us. Afraid that God will reject us because of the things we have done. Afraid because we know that He will do some very radical changes in our lives. In reality, it’s impossible to hide from God. Just like He found Adam and Eve, He will find us. At that point when we are in the presence of God, we have a decision to make, will we submit to His will, confessing our sin and turning to Him for help. Or will we continue to run and try to hide. After many years of running and trying to hide myself, I can tell you that what God wants to do in your life is love you. God is love (1 John 4:8) and God wants to show you what love truly looks like.

Our God is a verbal God and He is calling you today. He calls to us through Jesus Christ and through His word. I once heard someone say that if you want to hear the voice of God, read the bible out loud. I challenge you to start your own bible reading plan. Get to know the God of the universe, God the creator, God the Father. I pray that God would call out to you as He did Adam and Eve and you would answer.

 

Fall So Hard

“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” Genesis 3:6 ESV

 

The first sin, the fall of man. It was a dark day for mankind when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge. They were kicked out of Eden, Adam had to start working the fields, and Eve was promised painful childbirth. Not a very good start in my opinion. To cut Eve some slack, she was deceived by a creature who, “was more crafty than any other beast of the field,” Gen. 3:1. Nevertheless, they sinned. They chose to believe the lies of the enemy instead of the truth of God. Why? Why did Eve put her faith in the lies of the serpent instead of God’s truth? Yes, the serpent was crafty but I think it has more to do with how Eve viewed the tree. It says she, “saw that the tree was good for food,” and, “a delight to the eyes,” Gen. 3:6. Eve viewed the tree as a delight not as a means to death. She viewed it as pleasure instead of pain. God told her that if she ate, she would die. Yet, she eats.

Thousands of years later, we still commit the same sin. God tells us not to do something because it is sin and sin leads to death, but we do it anyway. We still choose the lies of the world, the lies of the devil, instead of God’s truth. We do it because it seems delightful or may bring us momentary pleasure but we are left with guilt, heartache, and pain. We have to change our perspective on sin. We put new labels on old sins to make it seem less lethal. We say things like, “I’m struggling with…” or “I messed up again.” We must call it what it is, sin. Don’t get me wrong, I have things that “I’m struggling with,” we all do. The bible says that we “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:23. But we must call sin, sin. The good news is we don’t have to live in a continuous sin cycle, we can be free from the chains of sin.

So how do we break free? How do we escape slavery to sin?

We confess.

Romans 10:9 says, “Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, YOU WILL BE SAVED.” This is how we are saved from eternal damnation, but how do we free ourselves from our sin cycle?

We confess.

James 5:16 says, “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be HEALED.”

We confess to God and we are saved, we confess to one another and we are healed. We are not meant to do this life alone, we need each other. We need people in our lives that we can confess our sins too. I’m not talking about someone you confess to and they say, “Yeah, me too buddy! Join the club.” I’m talking about Christian brothers and sisters that will hold us accountable to our sin. People that love us enough to tell us when we are wrong and to call out our sin.

The problem many face is that we don’t like to be called out. We don’t want people to know our dirty secrets. We fear the rejection of man more than the wrath of God. This too comes from a problem with our perspective on sin. If someone warned us that we were about to do something potentially deadly, like walk into traffic or jump out of a plane with no parachute, we would thank them for saving our lives. If someone calls out our sin we tell them to mind their own business. We must view sin as the poison it is and be thankful for the people that God has put in our lives to help us overcome it.

My prayer for you reader, is that if you are struggling with sin you would confess it and be free. You don’t have to live with that guilt and shame from some hidden sin anymore. Confess and you will be healed. Break free from the bondage that is sin.