Friday 18 September, 2015

22 The Lord God said, “Just like one of us, the man can now tell the difference between good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out and pick fruit from the tree of life and eat it. If he does, he will live forever.” 23 So the Lord God drove the man out of the Garden of Eden. He sent the man to farm the ground he had been made from. 24 The Lord God drove him out and then placed angels on the east side of the garden. He also placed there a flaming sword that flashed back and forth. The angels and the sword guarded the way to the tree of life.

What were they thinking?

Two trees: One leads to life and the other to death. They’re allowed to eat from the tree of life, but they are forbidden to eat from the tree that leads to death. So which did they choose? They thought death on their terms was better than eternal life walking with God. What were they thinking?

Yet that’s the same choice so many people make now.

Now that the people had chosen their way over God’s way, now that they had hidden themselves from Him when they should be walking with Him, the tree of life becomes incredibly dangerous. What if they took its fruit and lived forever separated from God? That sounds like Hell. The tree of such blessing would become a curse. See how sin turns God’s good creation on its head.

And God brilliantly turns the death they earned into our rescue. When Jesus takes my place in death, he redeems me. Sin’s legal hold on me is broken. The separation is undone. I can become a new creation. God can again offer the tree of life (Revelation 2:7 and chapter 22).

I choose life walking with my God.

Written by David Cornell