Who told you? Part 1

Introduction to the study: Fall of Man

Just about every Christian has heard at least once in their lifetime a sermon about the fall of man. It is actually almost impossible to truly understand why we are sinners and our need for Christ without first being told about the origin of sin. But the fall of man doesn’t only tell us about the origin of sin, but also reveals to us our need for Christ. Furthermore, through careful study of what transpired on that day that changed human history for an eternity, we begin to understand the daily battle we as Christians are subject to from the moment we accept Christ as our personal saviour.

See being born again doesn’t magically sweep the devil off your back. No! The actual opposite happens. His attacks become more vigorous and strategic. But just like the fall of man shows us that we all inherited sin from Adam, it also discloses the traps and snares of the enemy.

I want to encourage you to carefully read the whole of chapter 3 of genesis and meditate especially on those passages that seemed trivial to you in the past. Ask God to reveal to you a message you could have missed or overlooked previously. For no verse is in the Bible for no reason. Each has a specific message ready to be heard by the person open to hear. I intentionally did not try to tell you what I am learning about the first commited sin because I want to encourage you to read these verses and meditate upon them, allowing God to give you a revelation instead of me just influencing what you pick when you read the scriptures. Please feel free to share in the comment section what you learnt as you read the verses in Genesis 3.

In this post, we have been briefly reminded of the story of how sin came into is world and what role our understanding of fall of man plays in our path to salvation. In the next post, we shall study what the fall of man teaches us about our daily battle with the enemy. It will be a pleasure to have you join me as I study and share these series.

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” ² The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, ³ but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”⁴ “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. ⁵ “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” ⁶ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. ⁸ Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hidfrom the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” ¹⁰ He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

¹¹ And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” ¹² The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” ¹³ Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me,and I ate.” ¹⁴ So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock

and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
¹⁵ And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.” ¹⁶ To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” ¹⁷ To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it

all the days of your life. ¹⁸ It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
¹⁹ By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken;
for dust you are and to dust you will return.” ²⁰ Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living ²¹ The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. ²² And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” ²³ So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. ²⁴ After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.” – Genesis 3

Always ready to give an answer

Through faith, God reveals to us mysteries.

Have you ever asked a question and the only answer you got was “there are things we will never know” basing on Deuteronomy….

Yes. God did leave some mysteries unknown to man. But does that mean he can not reveal to whom he wants the things he wants to reveal? The carnal mond will never comprehend the things of the Lord. For sin has no fellowship in God’s presence. But God promised to reveal his intentions to his children. The things not seen and that can’t be understood by the carnal mind, he chose to help us understand.
Jesus answered them, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. – Matthew 13:11

When we received Jesus Christ in our hearts as our personal saviour, we passed from death to life. We died to our carnal selves and now walk in the spirit. More so God gave us his Holy spirit to dwell in us and reveal to us the mysteries that were once hidden from us. He is willing and wants to share with us the fullness of life and reveal to us His plans and intentions and will. All we need is to cultivate a personal relationship with Him, study and meditate upon his word. And he will reveal to us mysteries beyond what our wildest dreams could have ever imagined.

But in your hearts set Christ apart [as holy—acknowledging Him, giving Him first place in your lives] as Lord. Always be ready to give a [logical] defense to anyone who asks you to account for the hope and confident assurance [elicited by faith] that is within you, yet [do it] with gentleness and respect. – 1 Peter 3:15

So being able to defend the gospel a lot to do with how much we honor Christ in our hearts. So we do not have to settle for less. God has given us so many opportunities to help us know the things we need to know. We can study his word and also cultivate an intimate relationship with him where we see life through his eyes. Let us as Christians be ready to walk in the oath God called us to and to answer questions people will ask about our father so that his name will be glorified.

Faith is sight

Faith is sight! It almost seems impossible to believe that faith can give sight especially in the world where we are taught that we should believe without seeing. It makes the idea of faith being sight sound like am oxymoron. we have been taught that we ought to believe before we see.

Yes! Jesus told Thomas, that blessed is that man who believes without seeing. In this verse. He was referring to someone who waits to see with their physical eyes before they believe. More so, Thomas had walked with Christ and had witnessed so many miracles, even the resurrection of Lazarus, yet he failed to believe Jesus could be alive just because he didn’t see it.

Faith that enables us to see the unseen

See we should not confuse believing without seeing and seeing because we believe. The world will say seeing is believing. But God says believing is seeing.

Elisha prayed to God, asking Him to open the eyes of his servant. See Elisha had faith even though they were sorrounded by an army. And yet it took the revelation of the angels to the servant for him to believe that God was by their side. Do we see how through faith, Elisha saw clearly? This is the perfect example of why faith is sight. His servant on the other hand, first saw and then believe. Without Elisha’s faith to see even the unseen, it would have never been possible for the servant to have an opportunity to also see, so that his faith too might be triggered.

Opportunities to help our faith grow

See God is not out there to set road block for us to stumble upon. He will give us numerous opportunities in life to have reason to trust in Him, his word, and believe that what he says, he has the power to fulfill. He doesn’t ask us to just believe without giving us – by his grace – just enough motivation that will push our faith to the next level. No! He does not expect us to come from zero faith and shoot up to 100% the day we hear about him. He is willing to walk us through it as we grow and get to know him better. And on this journey, we see his goodness, we see who He is, not only with our physical eyes but also with our spiritual eyes. And it is by this faith and trust we put in the Lord, that he reveals to us even things that we otherwise wouldn’t have known and gives us answers to questions that are unexplainable.

In the Image of God

What does it mean to be made in the image of God? What evidence is there to prove that we are made in the Image of God? How can one identify the Image of God in us? Do we become less of God´s image when we fall from grace?

“So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. ” – Genesis 1:27

Understanding what took place at the cross

It is not a rare thing, to meet a Christian who has little or no knowledge of the very foundation of our Christian faith which is, Christ died for our sins so that we might be saved. Why is this so? I believe this situation is as a result of a lack of mentoring and ample time to study biblical truths about salvation.

Choosing God

Why God gave us a freedom of choice

Have you ever wondered why God, knowing that Adam would disobey him, put the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden? Why He stood by and watched us sin ourselves through history?