When did Eve in the Garden eat the fruit forbidden by God? Answer: “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise” (Genesis 3:6 NASB).
Earlier, the first human beings followed the Lord from the heart. But when they were prompted by the Tempter, they followed the flesh. Today, the Lord wants people to get back to following Him from the heart. How will He do it? “I will put my law within them and on their heart will I write it” (Jeremiah 31:33 NASB).
When the law of God is on the outside, the flesh evaluates. “Is it good to eat? Is this what I and need?” The many media influencers are trying to convince us that we need this or that. Our culture influences our choices. It has been writing its ways on the heart.
When the law of God is not written on the inside, the flesh asks, “Is it a delight to the eyes? Will it be fun? Will it dazzle my senses? Will it promise me something for this moment’s craving?” The Tempter is still leading the flesh by the slave ring in the nose, pushing our buttons to respond to the fashion of the moment.
The flesh keeps evaluating. “Will it make me wise? Will I understand what life is about? Will I understand how to get everything I want and be the person I was meant to be?” The flesh decides what is good and evil, what will protect and feed self. How do we escape this trap? What’s the way out?
Enter the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is our alternate source for knowledge. He completely bypasses the flesh with its baffles of biases and confusion to impress on us the good and perfect will of God. But that only happens after we first accept the gospel of Jesus Christ by faith, that the Lord will deliver us by His grace, not by the flesh or external laws.
Did He not overcome death and the grave? His flesh died, but then His body was raised in glory by the power of God. He is the one who broke the back of our ever-craving flesh, all that we may follow God.
The flesh embarrasses us. It makes us cringe when we cross the line. It makes us feel cheated when we fall for a cheap knockoff of the real thing. We feel like we’re stuck in the shallow and superficial, so we seek escape in video visuals, which, of course, are a manufactured reality.
Following the external commands on stone and smartphone don’t bring meaning to life with satisfaction. But the resident Spirit points us to the holy, the eternal, and the fulfilling life.
How do we get from here to there? Faith and obedience go directly against the flesh. With biblical faith, we trust the Lord Jesus instead of the temptation. With biblical obedience, we follow the Word instead of the flesh.
Surrender to Jesus is the fastest way of deliverance from temptation and sin. Where there is no faith in Jesus, there is faith in our own resources, and therefore we will yield to temptation knocking at the door.
Surrender to the Lord morning by morning. Read the Word morning by morning. Look for what to believe Jesus for, and for directions to obey. Is there a promise? A warning? A change of behavior to follow? A new way to view your life or the world?
Make a decision to follow through on what the Bible says in spite of your feelings or circumstances in life. You are now following a new Lord. You now have reasons to resist temptation because you are not living for yourself but the Creator who made you to be His and enjoy Him.
As you read and pray for understanding and follow the direction you receive, the Spirit writes God’s spiritual laws on the inside and they become the new way of life for you.
Your goal is to switch your evaluation of life from your feelings and other faculties so that you follow the Spirit of the Lord. Eve went off track when she turned from the Tree of Life in God to trust in her senses. By God’s grace, you can switch back. By faith in Jesus Christ, you receive strength to overcome. God goes to bat for you when you rest your faith in His Son.
When you believe in yourself, or you trust in your heart, instincts, or strong emotions, you are not trusting in the Word of God to direct you. You are in the dangerous position of Eve and susceptible to the lies of the enemy. Satan is the father of lies, and he wants to keep you from the truth of God, especially the truth that God empowers those who trust in His Son and follow through on that trust.
Jesus is our example. He trusted the Father, received direction from Him, and followed through, even to the death of the cross for His enemies. He desires to mold us into His image. He wants is to follow His example of faith in God, receiving directions, and following through.
This is what maturity looks like. From following temptation to following the Savior. From trusting in self to trusting the true and living God. We will always be slaves of something. We will be slaves of sin and suffer the consequences, or servants of Christ and reap eternal life.
We never move away from this position before God. Day by day, pick up your daily briefing from the Bible. Hour by hour, put your day’s lesson into practice as though to honor Him who spoke to you through His life-giving Word.
Eve turned from the Tree of Life and suffered separation from God. Jesus is today’s Tree of Life now, and offers life evermore.
