The Choice

God, our creator, once had a great relationship with us. The Garden of Eden was and is Heaven on Earth. It is the physical manifestation of the heavenly realm. Thing is, it is currently invisible to us because of one man. God told Adam (Eve was not created yet) not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge. He listened. When Eve was created and he was telling her the rules set forth by God we have to wonder this, who added the part about not even touching the tree? The first lie on record. When Eve told the serpent this, the conniving creature was able to convince Eve that the fruit would not kill her. She was convinced the serpent was right and she ate. The first sin was not eating of the tree but the lie. So the question is, who said it first. Did Adam not want Eve to even go near the tree so he told her not to even touch it? Or was it so that when she was near and was tempted she told that to the serpent as a way to get it away from her which backfired? Of this we will never know. Either way the fault still is in Adam.
​                                                                 LIES CAN KILL
Lies are very harmful especially when they backfire and the person who told it usually gets in some kind of trouble almost immediately. Once Adam and Eve chose to eat of the tree, they were awakened to knowledge of good and evil and chose to hide from God because they knew they did wrong but also misunderstood why they had this feeling. We all know that we cannot hide from God. He sees and knows everything. When God found them the two immediately went into the blame game. “She gave me the fruit and I ate”, said Adam. “The serpent told me it was okay”, said Eve. Then God spoke with the council and they agreed to kick them out of the Garden of Eden in the off chance that they choose to eat from the Tree of Life. It was probably very heart breaking (if you can imagine God’s disappointment in them) but He set them apart from paradise and punished the serpent.
God covered them with animal skins to ensure them that He still cared but then made it perfectly clear who was in charge of their life which was made very difficult. This in turn made them see that trusting in God praising Him in all things and asking Him for help in times of trouble was a way to  have Him close but no longer visible. He then shut the gate to the Garden until the appointed time.

How come we still are not let into the Garden while we are in our mortal state? We are no longer the perfect creation that God made us to be initially. The fruit gave us the freedom of choice to be good or evil, to desire communion with God or live our own lives away from Him. Our human eyes cannot bear to see the brilliance that is God’s eminent light so we must choose to live for Him now to be able to see Him when we pass from this life into the next. Those who choose to avoid and or disobey God will not see the light until it is too late.
So, herein lies the question, “How can a loving God send us to darkness in Hell?”. We should not be asking this question because we know the answer is because some choose not to trust in Him. Instead we need to ask, ”How can the Perfect, Sinless God allow us to live with Him in Heaven?”.  This is answered in the simplest manner but it is the hardest choice to make. Because He loves us and wants to commune with us again. Those of us who choose life in the Savior whom He sent as the final blood sacrifice and defeater of death, follow His ways and trust in Him to positively mediate our case with the Father, are allowed to commune with Him.
This means we must not trust in the ways and means of man though we must live in the world. We must not be of the world dependent on the false idols to make it through the day. We must start our day and end our day in praise and thanksgiving of God through His Word, following the instructions and examples of Scripture and keeping Him in our heart at all times. In doing so we are defended against the temptations of Satan. Though we do let our guard down and are not perfect (me included), as long as we ask forgiveness and seek God through Christ we will see Him again.
Brothers and Sisters, take care and be blessed today and every day. May God shine upon you and give you peace.

---