The three evil stepsisters: distraction, temptation, and self-gratification.
Let’s just be totally honest here… I don’t care who are or what you’re about, these nasty three have at some point worked their way into all of our lives at some time or another. Chances are, they did some damage.
The last, typically the most deadly is truly the root of most evil. Hence why huge acts of hate are happening this very minute all over, and why our world seems to be spinning into mayhem. All three make for a life-long battle for even a very spiritually mature Christian while still within ‘this side of life’; all because sin in here all around us.
The hope for us, however, is we have the ultimate Victor fighting for us! (*** please understand that this pertains ONLY to those who have acted upon what is explained in Romans 10:9-10; please, please ask if you have questions or if this is unclear for you!!)
So for us to move forward in finding out why sin even has to be in existence, we’re going back again to the two that started it all.
And so it begins..
In the very first book of the Old Testament, Genesis, chapter 3, Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God and His command is described. The instant Adam sinned, his inner nature was immediately changed. Because of his disobedience, he brought on what he now would have to face: spiritual death (don’t panic, I’ll explain this scary term soon), which would be passed on to all who came after him. aka US!
SIN: the inherited kind
We are first sinners not because we’ve already messed up but because of Adam’s sin; the idea of ‘inherited sin’. This is the reason some religions believe babies must be baptized ‘cleansed of their hereditary sin’ soon after their birth. This inherited sin, however, can’t be ‘washed away’, especially by others when the baby himself can’t quite yet choose to lie, cheat, steal, etc! Just as we genetically inherit physical traits from our parents, as Adam’s descendents, we inherit our sinful natures from him. This means we are born sinners IN DESPERATE NEED of a Savior.
“But I didn’t eat the fruit…”
True, but Scripture says that we, as individuals and as a human race, were all represented by Adam. A president may say or do things that many of the country’s citizens don’t agree with, but he is still the leader—he is the officially recognized representative of the country. So in the same way, Adam was the first created human being… he stood at the “head” of the human race. He was placed in the garden to act not only for himself but for all his descendants to come. Adam was given an awesome opportunity! He was made by God to be father of the entire human race and set the path for everyone that would follow his footsteps even loooong long after his life on earth. Well because of this, every person ever born is already “in Adam,” represented by him and the decisions he made.
3 REASONS GOD COULDN’T HAVE A DO-OVER:
1) They acted on the self-will He gave them.
-He wouldn’t be the perfect, fair God if He granted them free will but then wiped ‘em out because they didn’t make the decision He wanted them to. They made their decision. Their consequences for not obeying Him would follow.
2) For an opportunity to show us His ultimate love.
-God could have chosen to leave us hopeless as a result of our ancestor’s mistake, which technically, would have been the ‘just’ thing to do.
-Instead, He chose to modify the whole sin situation with a ‘way out’ for the one’s who choose to accept it.
*Most of us would have thrown in the towel and just said “forget you guys, then!” At least I would have. But that’s what makes me a sinner, and what makes God, God.
-He made beautiful out of dirt; us. What He does best. Cause He can do dat.
3) God is 100% completely, totally, and wholly just.
-The sin had to be accounted for somewhere in order for us to be made RIGHT and see His face one day.
-HE IS FAIR so He had to come up with a sacrifice to ATONE for the sin brought in by Adam and all of His descendants to come, so that WE may have a way out: The Perfect Lamb Sacrifice. His Son. Jesus Christ.
Adam brought on sin, which ruined God’s original plans for earth at the very start of it all. We were now going to have to live, decay in earthly bodies, become righteous in God’s sight based on faith in Christ, and experience a physical death to be in His Kingdom one day, since earth could no longer be the eternal Kingdom at that time. At the time of sin, we became spiritually dead as well. The sin put up a wall between us and God, Jesus came and died and left behind for us a ladder in order to have a way over the wall, thus us then becoming spiritually alive in Christ. We’re just a bunch of corpses runnin’ around this place before the MIGHTY LOVING MERCY of Christ, y’all!
This is why Jesus died: to make our sins able to be forgiven in the eyes of God, tracing all the way back, beginning with Adam. So yeah, I find myself reaaaally wanting to look up and through gritted teeth and the stink eye and fuss out, “thanks a whole lot, stupid Adam.” But let’s be honest. Most of our sins still probably make Adam look like Puritan.
In the next post, I will be sharing how Jesus introduced Himself to me. Still praying for each and every one of you!
xxoo,
christine
Anyways, I dug up some fabulous inspiration for us all. Enjoy!
3.) INSTEAD, THEY CHOSE PRIDE
I will let you in on a little ‘secret that is actually not a secret at all: once we begin to seek a relationship with Him more and more, our eyes begin to shed the scales that the world has caked over them. When you allow that to start happening, although His LOVE for you is something of great magnitude and depth, you are going to begin grasping its realness without effort. So now, while the whole ‘God thing’ may be a foreign language to you, as you go deeper and deeper, it all will start making much more sense.
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