Satan’s DeceptionSýnishorn

Trust: The Cohesion of Relationship

To understand the scope of God’s plan of redemption, we must visit the Garden of Eden in Genesis, the book of beginnings. It contains the record of God’s creation of the heavens and the earth, of every living thing, and the beginning of the human story. Adam and Eve were made in God’s image and placed in the Garden of Eden, which He lovingly designed for them. God provided for them through His living and seed-bearing creations for which they were to care, and which would sustain them.

Adam and Eve were created with the ability to make moral choices. In doing so, God invested them with great dignity. Love provided options. They could choose to obey or to disobey. Their choice was fundamentally motivated by their attitude toward God. Was He dependable? Could He be trusted? Were they to suspect His interest?

The cohesive element in this loving God-people connection was trust. Force or coercion could not maintain that bond. God trusted Adam and Eve with His breath, His life, and His Word. He endowed them with His nature, His authority, and His power of procreation. He trusted man and woman to tend the Garden of Eden and to care for all He had created, to populate the earth with godlike persons, and together to reflect His image.

God would judge Adam and Eve’s attitudes and actions. They were to trust His integrity and goodness. They were to trust God as He trusted them. Their obedience would be the evidence of their absolute trust and dependence on Him. God’s only prohibition for Adam and Eve was to not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. All else was given to them. They lacked nothing.

Everything that was created to function in harmonious perfection becomes fractured and flawed. What happened? A menacing shadow settled over the beauty and purity of God’s living presence with humans. The serpent, a created being who had rebelled against God, crept into the Garden of Eden to oppose God’s purposes on earth. Satan had no supremacy or spiritual power of control over Adam and Eve unless he could induce them to question God’s Word and to disobey Him, which they did. Their trust was flawed.

God, thank You for loving me enough to give me choices. Today, I will love You back by trusting Your integrity and goodness.