On Temptation

One of the oldest tricks in the devil's book is to make you feel like you're going to be missing out on something if you turn everything over to the Lord, and serve him fully. He played that card on Eve in the garden of Eden and she fell for it: "And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat" (Gen. 3:4-6). The rest of that story is history, and a very long and catastrophic history at that. The truth is that God really does want us to miss out on a whole lot of things, and all of those things are things that Satan wants to give us. After Eve believed the serpent's lie, and Adam went along with it, mankind inherited all that the devil wanted him to have. Turmoil, fear, unrest, strife, hatred, self-pity, confusion, doubt; and a whole lot of other such things are what God wants us to miss out on. God did not lie in the garden of Eden, and he does not lie now. By the same token, the devil DID lie in the garden of Eden, and he is still lying today. Every single lie in the devil's bag of tricks is to the intent that man keeps everything that he accepted from Satan there in the garden of Eden.

In due time God sent his Son to make a way for mankind to be truly delivered from everything that he had accepted from the devil, and to have the love that "passes knowledge," "the peace that passes all understanding," and the joy that is "unspeakable, and full of glory" (Eph. 3:19; Philip. 4:7; I Pet. 1:8). There were only two options in the garden of Eden, and there are still only two options for man today. Moses may have said it best: "See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil... I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live" (Deut. 30:15,19). We can believe God, or we can believe the devil. If we believe on Jesus according to how the scriptures define believing on Jesus, we will have the results of that faith which are mentioned above. If we do NOT believe on Jesus according to the divinely defined way of faith, then we ARE believing the devil's lie; and we will have all of the things that God has always wanted us to miss out on, including the grand finale of unbelief, which is eternal damnation along with the devil and his angels (Jn. 3:18; Mat. 25:41). As for me, I'm a man who measures everything by results; and the graphically contrasted results of these two options are as concise, and accurate, and significant as it gets. I don't know about you, but that makes it a very easy and blessed choice for me. Amen.