Falling Short of God's Glory
Notes
Transcript
text: Genesis 3:1-24
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field that the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’ ”
2 The woman answered the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden,
3 but about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You must not eat of it or touch it, or you will die.’ ”
4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent told her.
5 “For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom, she took the fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.
7 And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; so they sewed together fig leaves and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the breeze of the day, and they hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
9 But the LORD God called out to the man, “Where are you?”
10 “I heard Your voice in the garden,” he replied, “and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.”
11 “Who told you that you were naked?” asked the LORD God. “Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”
12 And the man answered, “The woman whom You gave me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” “The serpent deceived me,” she replied, “and I ate.”
14 So the LORD God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and every beast of the field! On your belly will you go, and dust you will eat, all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
16 To the woman He said: “I will sharply increase your pain in childbirth; in pain you will bring forth children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
17 And to Adam He said: “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat, cursed is the ground because of you; through toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.
18 Both thorns and thistles it will yield for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread, until you return to the ground— because out of it were you taken. For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”
20 And Adam named his wife Eve, because she would be the mother of all the living.
21 And the LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them.
22 Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil. And now, lest he reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever...”
23 Therefore the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
24 So He drove out the man and stationed cherubim on the east side of the Garden of Eden, along with a whirling sword of flame to guard the way to the tree of life.
PRAY
Introduction
What does it mean to fall short of the glory of God?
We’re probably all familiar with Romans 3:23
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
But what does that mean?
I think we know what it means to fall short.
Think maybe of when you were in school and you only got a 60% on a test and you needed 70% to pass. You fell short.
Or one biblical image is that of archery. You’re shooting toward a target and your arrow falls short of the target. You fell short of the target.
But what is the glory of God?
It is the value or worth of who God is, his character, especially
His Power shown by His Love
His Majesty Displayed through Meekness
His Greatness demonstrated through serving
To fall short of the glory of God, then, is to fail to embrace what is most valuable. It is to choose the fleeting pleasures of sin over the eternal pleasures of God. What honors God most, and what satisfies us most, is to see and enjoy God for who He is.
When we love God and treasure Him above everything else, then He is most honored, and we are most satisfied. But when we prefer other things above God, He is dishonored, and we will not be satisfied.
This is the essence of sin: preferring something or someone else to God; listening to and trusting someone more than God; and loving someone or something else more than God.
To sin is to trample on the glory of God. And because God is just and upholds His glory as the greatest value in the universe, He must punish sin.
But not only is God just and righteous and angry at sin, He is also gracious and merciful, and He loves to forgive those who will repent of their sin and turn back to Him.
This is good news for us, because, as the verse says, [we] all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory. Elsewhere it says, we all, like sheep have gone astray; we have turned each one to his own way.
But it is in the darkness of our sin and rebellion that God’s grace and mercy shine brightest, so as we consider the fall into sin today, do not lose hope. Our sins are many, but His mercy is more. His grace is greater than all our sin.
The Fall into Sin (v. 1-6)
The Fall into Sin (v. 1-6)
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field that the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’ ”
The Tempter (1) Rev 12:9, 20:2.
Notice first the tempter. He is here called a serpent, but this is no ordinary snake.
If it isn’t clear enough from other passages in the Old Testament, the New Testament tells us plainly in Revelation 12:9 the true identity of this serpent:
9 And the great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
(back to Genesis 3:1)
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field that the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’ ”
It says that he was “crafty.” This is a word used frequently in Proverbs with a positive meaning of “prudent” or “wise.” But there is more than one kind of wisdom. James says there is a kind of wisdom that is not genuine, a wordly wisdom that leads to disorder and evil actions: “Such wisdom (he says) does not come from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.” (James 3:15)
It seems to be this same kind of wisdom that the woman seeks from eating the fruit of the forbidden tree. It is not godly wisdom that acts out of love for God and others but a cunning, clever, crafty, worldly wisdom that seeks to use God and others for selfish purposes.
God made him
Another important detail to note about the serpent is that he is a creature that the LORD God had made. The philosophy of dualism teaches that God and Satan are equal but opposite enemies fighting for control of the universe, but the Scripture asserts that this serpent, who is the devil, is a created being. He is not eternal, and He is not equal to God. He is a created being.
And God has His own good purposes in creating him and allowing him to continue to rebel against Him.
And so the serpent, who is the devil, is the one who is doing the tempting.
The Target of Temptation (1)
The next thing to note from this verse is the target of Satan’s temptation. He speaks to the woman. And where was Adam?
Though the evidence is not conclusive, let me show you two reasons that I believe Adam was right there with Eve while the serpent tempted her.
First, in v. 6, when she gave into the temptation, it says,
Genesis 3:6 (BSB)
6 … she took the fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.
She didn’t have to go looking for him to share the fruit with him. He was already with her.
Second, throughout verses 1-5, although the serpent is talking to Eve, the pronouns used are plural. “You” is used 7 times and is always plural, and “we” in v. 2 is plural as well. Though Adam does not speak, it appears that he is included in the conversation. He stands and listens in silence as the serpent tempts his wife.
The Temptation (1-5)
Consider now the temptation:
Genesis 3:1 (BSB)
1 … And he said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’ ”
The first thing the serpent does is to make God out to be oppressive and unkind. In essence he is saying that God is not good and God’s commands are burdensome.
Eve responds in v. 2-3:
2 The woman answered the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, 3 but about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You must not eat of it or touch it, or you will die.’ ”
Although at first glance her response seems good, there are at least 2 problems with Eve’s response that set her up for the temptation:
First, she adds to God’s Word.
Second, she takes away from God’s Word.
Look back at God’s command to Adam in Genesis 2:16-17:
16 And the LORD God commanded him, “You may eat freely from every tree of the garden, 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.”
First, her comment that God said they should not touch the fruit of the tree was not true - she has added to God’s Word and made His command more burdensome than it really is. While setting up such a safeguard may be a good idea, it is wrong to attribute it to God.
2 The woman answered the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, 3 but about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You must not eat of it or touch it, or you will die.’ ”
Second, she took away from God’s Word by softening the consequence of sin. It’s a slight detail that we might easily miss, but that important word “surely” is missing. She takes away from the certainty of the consequence of sin, and this opens her up to the next attack from the serpent in v. 4:
4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent told her.
This is an outright lie of course. He says the very opposite of God. He is a liar and deceiver, as Jesus said in John 8:44:
John 8:44 (BSB)
44 The devil… was a murderer from the beginning, refusing to uphold the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, because he is a liar and the father of lies.
And so the father of lies is calling God a liar. He is telling Eve to doubt and disbelieve God’s Word.
And he does the same thing to us.
Next, in v. 5, he tells another lie: that sin will satisfy her more than God.
5 “For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
He promises her a kind of wisdom or understanding beyond what she has now, and says that they will be like God. They will get to call the shots and decide what is right and wrong for themselves. No more submitting to God’s authority, they’ll get to be their own God and make their own rules.
And this is the same thing we’re tempted with when we’re tempted to sin: we want to rule our own life, decide what’s best for us, be the highest authority. We don’t want someone telling us what to do or not do. We want to have the right to make that choice. In other words, we want to be God.
There are some children I know (who shall remain nameless), who think that eating chicken nuggets and sugar is all they need for a healthy diet. They sincerely believe that they know what is best for themselves and they want the authority to make their own choices. They don’t want someone telling them what to do. (It’s a struggle. Pray for us!)
It’s not just children who struggle with this - this is the struggle for all of us. We must learn to submit ourselves to the good and gracious authority of our Lord.
To sum up the temptation: there are 2 lies that Satan tells
One, God and His commands are not good
Two, Sin is more satisfying and rewarding than God
These are the lies we believe every time we sin.
We choose to distrust the great and precious promises of God, and
We choose to trust the deceptive promises of sin.
We believe that sin will satisfy us more than walking in a right relationship with God.
This is why we say unkind words to or about other people.
This is why we are selfish and unloving in the way we treat people.
This is why we seek to exalt ourselves and put down others.
This is why we give in to sexual temptations.
This is why we waste so much time on things that will pass away rather than invest our lives in eternity.
When we give in to sin, it’s because we are choosing to believe the lies of sin rather than the Word of God. This is why we need God’s Word in our hearts and minds, so that we can fight against the lies of sin with the precious promises of God.
The Sin (6)
When we come to v. 6, the temptation has taken place, and now it’s time for a response.
6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom, she took the fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.
There is first an internal response, then an external response:
Internal: There were three things that it tells us happened in Eve’s mind and heart:
She saw that the tree was good for food: perhaps she was hungry, and she began thinking about how this fruit would satisfy her hunger.
She saw that it was pleasing to the eyes: besides the physical pleasure of enjoying the fruit, she liked the way it looked - it was visually stimulating, perhaps shiny or very colorful and beautiful
She saw that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom: she believed that this fruit would give her something that she did not have - the kind of knowledge or wisdom that the serpent had promised, which God had not given to her.
These three internal aspects of the response to temptation - these desires or lusts, seem to correspond to what John tells us that the world still offers us today:
16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not from the Father but from the world.
The desires of the flesh - physical desires like hunger
The desires of the eyes - visual stimulation, enjoying beauty
The pride of life - an inordinate desire to accumulate possessions, this world’s goods
These same desires that were in Eve’s heart are still in the world today, and it is when we act on these desires in disobedience to God’s commands that we sin.
And that is what happened in the Garden of Eden. The temptation itself is not sin, and these desires are not necessarily sinful - it’s what we do with them that matters.
External: Eve’s external response (and sadly ours many times) was to give in to these desires and disobey the direct command of God.
6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom, she took the fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.
Eve was deceived and led astray by the lies of the serpent and by her desires. Adam, however, knowingly disobeyed God’s command. He failed to lead his wife in obedience to God and rather followed her in disobedience.
And they broke the world. They and all creation suffered because of this sin, and we today, thousands of years later, continue to feel the effects of their sin.
There are some hints in the OT, and it is clearer in the NT, that we have inherited a sin nature from our first father, Adam. Not only are we conceived in sin as David said in Psalm 51, but we also inherit the guilt from Adam’s first sin. This means that we are born alienated from God and in need of His rescuing mercy.
The rest of Genesis 3 tells us of the consequences of sin, including God’s judgment, but it also holds out hope for us that, although Adam and Eve and we are guilty and deserving of God’s judgment, God is gracious and merciful, and He already had a plan to cover sin and restore people to Himself.
The Consequences of Sin (v. 7-19, 22-24)
The Consequences of Sin (v. 7-19, 22-24)
The first consequence we notice in the text is guilt and shame and a broken marriage relationship (7)
Genesis 3:7 (BSB)
7 And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked…
What had the serpent promised? “In the day you eat [this fruit], your eyes will be opened and you will be like God.” And what happened? “The eyes of both of them were opened” - that part was true. But instead of becoming like God, they realized that they were naked. Their innocence was lost. They felt shame. No longer were they naked and unashamed, they were now naked and vulnerable.
One commentary on Genesis says this:
The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1–17 1. The Tempter’s Methods (3:1–7)
What was formerly understood to be a sign of a healthy relationship between the man and the woman (2:25) has now become something unpleasant and filled with shame.
Before sin, they could be completely open and vulnerable with each other. There was no reason to distrust each other. There was perfect love and harmony. But now that they both sinned, their trust has been broken. They can no longer trust themselves completely to the other. The relationship is breaking down.
So what did they do?
Genesis 3:7 (BSB)
7 … so they sewed together fig leaves and made coverings for themselves.
Their first instinct is to hide - using the large leaves from fig trees they try to cover up.
The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1–17 1. The Tempter’s Methods (3:1–7)
they attempt to alleviate the problem themselves. Rather than driving them back to God, their guilt leads them into a self-atoning, self-protecting procedure: they must cover themselves.
Not only do they try to hide from each other, they also try to hide from God.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the breeze of the day, and they hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
Walking with God was apparently a regular part of their routine, probably in the evening - but this time was different. Rather than drawing near to God, their guilt and shame led them to hide from God.
Do we ever do that when we sin?
Do we ever cover up our sin and failures and try to hide them from God and others?
Proverbs 28:13 tells us what we ought to do:
13 He who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.
If we cling to our sin or try to cover it, we will not prosper. But by confessing and forsaking our sin we can receive God’s grace and mercy.
Broken relationship with God (8-12)
8 Then the man and his wife heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the breeze of the day, and they hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
So now there is a broken relationship with God.
But in reality you cannot hide from God. Trees are no match for the all-seeing eyes of the Lord. He can see you even if you’re in the bottom of a boat in the middle of the sea - just ask Jonah.
Hebrews 4:13 says that “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight; everything is uncovered and exposed before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.”
You might be able to fool other people and hide from them, but you cannot hide from God.
And now, God holds Adam and Eve to account:
9 But the LORD God called out to the man, “Where are you?”
Notice 2 things in v. 9:
God speaks to Adam first. God created Adam first, He had given His commandment to Adam, and Adam bore the greater responsibility. Men, this is a reminder that God holds us to account first and foremost. Our wives and children will also give account, but we will give account for how we led and taught them. We have a great responsibility to lead our families toward God and away from sin, and God will call us to account first.
God’s first question to Adam is “where.” He doesn’t ask “what” or “why”, but “where”. Where are you? This shows us that God is more interested in restoring the relationship than He is in the details of what we’ve done or why we’ve done it. God knows all these things already, but He is very gentle and tender in His approach even as He confronts this sin. He is the good Shepherd who comes looking for the lost sheep. Where are you? One commentary says, “this question urges confession rather than condemnation.”
Interestingly, Adam doesn’t reply exactly to God’s question (“I’m over here by this bush/tree”) but expresses his fear and shame.
10 “I heard Your voice in the garden,” he replied, “and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.”
God then asks him 2 more questions:
11 “Who told you that you were naked?” asked the LORD God. “Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”
Again, God knows the answer already, but He is giving Adam a chance to confess.
But what does Adam do?
12 And the man answered, “The woman whom You gave me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
At the very end of his statement, he acknowledges that he ate the fruit he wasn’t supposed to, but not before passing the blame first to his wife and then to God Himself. It was the woman’s fault - she gave it to me. And really, it’s your fault God, because You gave her to me.
He passes the blame for his sin. (We never do that, do we? - Blame other people or even God)
How did Eve do?
13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” “The serpent deceived me,” she replied, “and I ate.”
She did a little better, maybe. And what she said was true, though she is still trying to pass the blame to her circumstances and the serpent’s temptation.
In v. 14-19 we have God’s pronouncement of judgment, first on the serpent, then the woman, then Adam.
And an interesting observation about these words of judgment:
The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1–17 3. The Consequences of Transgression (3:14–19)
To each of the trespassers God speaks a word which involves both a life function and a relationship.
The serpent cursed (14-15)
14 So the LORD God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and every beast of the field! On your belly will you go, and dust you will eat, all the days of your life.
God’s judgment against the serpent is the most severe. He alone is cursed. Adam and Eve are not.
The serpent receives the harshest judgment. He is forced to crawl on his belly and eat dust. He will be a lowly, humble creature, no longer a wise and beautiful one.
And, v. 15
15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
There will be a broken relationship of enmity or hostility between the serpent and his seed and the woman and her seed. This is an amazing verse, and perhaps we’ll come back to it. The NT reveals to us that this is a promise that is ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who is the true seed of the woman. The devil struck Him on the cross, and by that same cross and His resurrection He dealt the death blow to the devil.
There’s a lot more to this verse than that, and I would commend this to you for your study and meditation. The theme of seed is an important one in Genesis and throughout Scripture, and I preached a message on this back on March 17 last year called “The Beginning and the End,” which I would commend for your further study.
The woman (16)
16 To the woman He said: “I will sharply increase your pain in childbirth; in pain you will bring forth children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
Regarding her life function of bearing children, God says it will be more painful. Not that it would have been pain-free apart from sin, but now the pain is greatly increased.
And regarding her relationship with her husband, God indicates there will be a constant struggle for power. I believe that’s what this phrase means. If you look over at Genesis 4:8, the exact same phrase is used in regard to sin’s relationship to Cain, meaning that sin’s desire is against Cain, its desire is to control him, but he must master it.
Eve’s desire will be for her husband, not in the sense of loving him too much (though that may be a struggle too), but in the sense that she will desire to control or dominate him, but in fact he will dominate her.
What is clear here is that there will be brokenness in the relationships between men and women, and there will be a power struggle between them. Only in Christ will we find healing for this brokenness.
Adam (17-19)
17 And to Adam He said: “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat, cursed is the ground because of you; through toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.
18 Both thorns and thistles it will yield for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread, until you return to the ground— because out of it were you taken. For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”
The ground is cursed and work is made more difficult and less enjoyable. Just as the woman would have pain in childbirth, the man will have pain in his work (the same word is used in Hebrew).
And ultimately, Adam will return to the dust from which he was taken.
Sin will result in physical death for Adam and Eve and all their descendants.
Paradise Lost (22-24)
A final consequence of sin is that Adam and Eve were no longer allowed in the Garden of Eden - they were banished. This meant the loss of fellowship with God as well as the loss of a beautiful home.
22 Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil. And now, lest he reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever...”
23 Therefore the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
24 So He drove out the man and stationed cherubim on the east side of the Garden of Eden, along with a whirling sword of flame to guard the way to the tree of life.
The good news is that sin and judgment are not the final word. For those who will receive it, there is grace and mercy to cover every sin and restore us to a right relationship with God.
Grace Greater than Sin
Grace Greater than Sin
The Promised Redeemer (15)
15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
Though God’s promise regarding a coming Redeemer will progressively become clearer over time throughout Scripture, God makes clear right from the beginning that the serpent, Satan, sin, and death will not have the final word. God promises a seed to the woman, that is, human offspring, who will defeat the serpent and sin and death. God will not leave them in their sin but will provide redemption. And we get a little taste of that in v. 21.
A Better Covering (21)
21 And the LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them.
Adam and Eve had tried to cover themselves, but their attempt was inadequate and done with wrong motivations. Now God Himself covers them, not with fig leaves, but with the skin of an animal. Though the text here makes no mention of sacrifice or bloodshed, it is reasonable to draw the conclusion that an animal had to die for God to use its skin as a covering for Adam and Eve.
And this shows us that only God Himself can cover our sin and shame. Nothing we do can take care of our problem. Only God can.
Their Response to God’s Grace (3:20-21, 4:1, 25)
How did Adam and Eve respond to God’s grace? And will we see them in heaven?
Verse 20 is Adam’s response to God’s words from Genesis 3:15.
20 And Adam named his wife Eve, because she would be the mother of all the living.
I’ve been calling her Eve all along, but technically she did not have this name until after the fall into sin and God’s judgment on sin.
Adam named her Eve. Why? Because she would be the mother of all the living. Eve mean living or life-giver. By giving this name to his wife, Adam was expressing faith in the promise of God. By giving her this name, he was saying, I believe that God will send the seed He promised. I believe that God will redeem.
Eve expresses similar faith in chapter 4, especially v. 25 which we’ll look at when we get there. She uses the word “seed” to refer to her son Seth, trusting God’s promise to provide a seed to crush the serpent’s head.
And they both received God’s gracious covering of the animal skins in v. 21.
So yes, I think we’ll see them in heaven. By God’s grace, they trusted God’s promise, looking forward to the coming Messiah, the Seed of the Woman who would crush the serpent’s head.
Genesis 3 is such an important chapter for understanding the whole Bible, because it shows us where everything went wrong, and it also gives us the first glimmer of hope that God is going to make things right again.
It’s an amazing story, and it’s true.
To the lost:
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. You have sinned. You fall short of God’s glory. And you need a Savior, a Redeemer who can cover your sin, defeat evil, and restore you to a right relationship with God. The good news is that God has done this for us by sending His Son.
Jesus Christ, God’s Son, was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, and perfectly obeyed every one of God’s commands. He never did, said, or though anything wrong. Everything He did perfectly pleased the Father. And then, He gave His life on the cross, not because He deserved to die, but because we do. He paid the penalty for our sin, He bore the judgment of God against sinners, He was separated from the Father so that we could be restored. And on the third day, He rose from the dead, and later ascended to heaven where He sits on His throne and will someday return to judge the living and the dead and reign over His people forever.
And He invites - or rather, commands you, to forsake your sin and come to Him for forgiveness. Trust in Him, give your life to Him. And His promise is this: to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.
If you will come to Christ and give yourself to Him, your sins will be forgiven, and you will enjoy eternal life with God.
Come today. Trust in Jesus today.
And for believers:
Though we have been forgiven, we continue to sin. We must keep coming back to God, confessing our sin and receiving His forgiveness. And fight against your sin.
Two things to keep in mind when fighting temptation: (The opposite of sin’s 2 lies)
God is really good, and His commands are good for us.
God’s promises are true and more rewarding than the promises of sin.
We fight sin by trusting the superior promises of God.
