From the Beginning!

First let’s start at the beginning, the first sin, the one that started it all and the one you and I struggle with the most: Original Sin! Original Sin is when we play God. Adam and Eve were tempted by the devil and fell into the trap of playing God. They played God when They decided what was right and wrong. With original sin it's all about me! It’s all about what I want, what I don't want, and what I think is right or wrong!

So the serpent lied about the fruit, lied about the outcome, and lied about God. But what was in it for him? What was his motivation? He gained nothing other than showing God that he could deceive and lie to Adam and Eve just to get his way. The serpent didn’t care about Adam or Eve. He didn’t care what would happen to Adam or Eve and he didn’t care about the long term consequences of Adam and Eve’s actions. He only wanted to prove to God that man was weak, and he could tempt them and make them sin!

Find what motivates someone, and you’ll learn a lot about that person.

Why was Eve so motivated to eat the fruit? You know this has nothing to do with eating. But, it has everything to do with being defiant and doing what Eve wanted to do. Or, is it being curious about what she was told not to do? This, in the end, is about the test of our free will. Our free will to exercise what we think is best compared against God commandments. We fail when we know the difference between right and wrong, and still sin.

Failing to be a man!

Why was Adam such a wimp and not stand up for his wife and defy the serpent? Ya! Adam, the man’s man! Knowing what’s right and what God said, he still chose to stand behind Eve and let her eat the fruit. Even when God questioned him, he said in his best wimp voice: “the woman whom you put here with me-she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it”. Then, Adam has the gull to try to give God some of the blame by saying, “whom You put her with me”. As though it’s God’s fault for creating someone who would trick him into eating the fruit! Stand up and be a man! A man who protects his family from the evil serpent with his lies, deception, and doubt! I also see this as the first test of a man as head of the family! And failing that test!

Let’s face it, sometimes sinning is fun! If it wasn’t fun, enjoyable, or desirable, we wouldn’t be so tempted by it! The “serpent” wouldn’t have any ammo against you and I if sin wasn’t enjoyable, fun, or desirable! That’s the devil’s trump card, our desire to satisfying every desire, whim, or self imposed need!

When you and I see the world through ourselves, that’s where the devil meets us! When we see the world through God, that’s were God meets us.

After being rescued from the coal mines in Chile, one man said, “I saw God, and I saw the devil, I choose God”