Friday, August 22, 2014

Adam and Eve 2: Blame and Finger-pointing

Adam and Eve Lesson 2:  Blame and Finger-Pointing
            Gen 3 talks about the fall of man.  Notice that when Adam and Eve got caught after eating the fruit, they pointed the finger at someone else, trying to shift the blame instead of simply saying, “I sinned and I’m sorry.  Forgive me.” 



           
To me, they actually seemed more upset about being caught than about disobeying God and breaking fellowship with Him.  And I have to ask myself how often I do that, too, in my daily life.  When I sin, am I more concerned with how it makes me look or how it makes me feel to get caught, or am I more concerned about the effect it has on my relationship with God and how it grieves His heart to know that I chose to disobey Him? 

            If I am more concerned about myself and getting caught, then I will find ways to excuse the sin, to downplay it, to cover it up, or to hide myself from God.  But if I am more concerned about what it does to my relationship with God, then I will not feel right again until I fall on my face before Him and admit my sin and ask for forgiveness. 
            But if my relationship with Him isn’t as close and open as it should be to begin with, then I may not even notice or be bothered by the distance that sin creates between God and me.  Only a heart that yearns for God will care about the destructive effects of sin on our relationship with Him.  And our hearts will ache until we make it right with Him again, until we don’t care anymore about excusing our sin and only care about drawing nearer to God’s heart again.  Because we know that we are incomplete apart from it.  Every time we sin, which is many times a day, we have an opportunity to either excuse it (which creates distance between God and us) or to admit it and seek forgiveness.  Which do you typically choose?