In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth… (Genesis 1) but it wasn’t until Genesis 27 that man was created by God in God’s image and likeness. The story of creation described in the Hebrew Bible had all the right ingredients to be a story of love and success for an eternity but it quickly ended in the beginning of death because of lack of responsibility on both Adam and Eve’s part.
Let’s fast forward to Genesis 3. The serpent persuaded Eve to eat the fruit of good and evil… she ate and became knowledgeable of good and evil. Eve then persuaded Adam to eat the fruit of knowledge and so he did. Both Adam and Eve’s eyes were fully opened! Shame (for being naked) they felt.
None of them asked for forgiveness… both blamed others for their mistakes which makes me believe that both Adam and Eve had an external loci of control! Let’s examine…
And God said to Adam, “Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat. And Adam said, THE WOMAN whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
And God said to Eve, “What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, THE SERPENT beguiled me, and I did eat.
Everything else is history ladies and gents. What is the moral of the story? We shouldn’t be or act like Adam and Eve. Clearly, God disproved their childish actions and punished their irresponsible behaviors as He did and should.
Rule #1: What God tells and instructs, we better do to the best of our abilities.
Rule #2: When we err, which is inevitable that we will, we are to take responsibility for our actions and ask God for forgiveness.
We can only wonder what the Lord’s response would have been if both Adam and Eve confessed their sin (disobeyed God) and asked for forgiveness.
The populist well know phrase once written states, “Humanity seeks its own destruction” had its origins in the garden of Eden.
My God, how great you are