Friday, September 6, 2019

Paradise Lost And Found

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (Genesis 1:31 ESV)
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and it was very good.

And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 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 2:16-17 NIV)
Everything was perfect and there was no sin and no death. God created man and gave him only one commandment to follow. Life was good and easy. Man has everything in the world, except for one tree.

The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the LORD God had made. One day he asked the woman, "Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?" "Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. "It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, 'You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.'" "You won't die!" the serpent replied to the woman. "God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil." (Genesis 3:1-5 NLT)
One day, man had to make a choice. He had to choose whether to believe in the word of God or not. He had to choose between obedience and disobedience, between life and death.

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. (Genesis 3:7 NIV)
Man has everything in the world, except for one tree. Man had only one commandment to follow. Man chose to break that commandment to get the tree. He wanted his eyes to be opened. His eyes were opened and he did not like what he saw.

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all people, because all sinned. (Romans 5:12 CSB)
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23 NIV)
So with man's disobedience came sin. With sin came death and death spread to all descendants of man. But the good news is that God offered us another choice, to believe His Word and accept His gift of eternal life in Jesus. We now face the same choice as our first ancestor. We have to choose whether to believe in the word of God or not. We have to choose between obedience and disobedience, between life and death.

For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man. (1 Corinthians 15:21 CSB)
The simple logic of salvation is this: if death had came through one man, life also come through one man. But how do we know which man to follow?

We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. (Romans 6:9 ESV)
The man who has life must be the man who conquered death. This man is Jesus Christ because Jesus was resurrected from the dead historically (not mythologically) and He has conquered death. The question is, do you believe? Or are you like Adam, who chose not to believe and die?

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