A devotional thought presented to Swift Current Men’s Prayer Breakfast, Thursday 22 January 2015 and River Street Cafe 13 November 2015
Read
Genesis 1:26-28, 2:16-18
When
God made this wonderful garden out of nothing at all for Adam and Eve to tend.
He asked something very simple in return. God made the world for His people and
He just told them to take care of it and obey Him in some simple ways.
·
Genesis 1:28a: “God blessed them and
said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue
it…”
·
Genesis 1:28b: “Rule over the fish of
the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on
the ground.’”
·
Genesis 2:16-17: “And the LORD God
commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you
must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat
of it you will surely die.’”
God
says 1) populate the earth (Genesis 1:28a), 2) take care of everything in it
(Genesis 1:28b) and 3) in doing this I’ll let you eat anything you want in the
garden – but just not the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, it’s not safe. I’m saving that for something (Genesis 2:16-17).
.
This
is like if you, as parents, are going out on a Saturday night leaving your
older children to baby-sit their younger sibling for the first time. “Be good
and take care of the house”, you say. “I want you to unload the dishwasher and
you can have whatever treats you want before bed but just don’t touch the
cupcakes; they’re for church on Sunday, so don’t eat the cupcakes or there will
be real trouble.” Then you come home, very pleased with your children that they
are now old enough to be left alone, you look in the kitchen for something to
eat and you notice that where the cupcakes should be… they are gone. That
disappointment, sadness and anger must be a reflection of the disappointment
God felt when He came back to the garden and saw that – even though there was
only one fruit He was saving – He came back and it was gone. As parents, of
course, if our children ate the cupcakes we would realize that they are not
quite ready for the responsibility of being left alone at home and so we would
wait awhile before trusting them to take care of the house again. The children
would certainly have a time-out from that responsibility. It was the same with
God. He wasn’t about to leave His children in the garden when they betrayed His
trust. Adam and Eve couldn’t be trusted to take care of the garden. People
couldn’t be trusted. We couldn’t be trusted. That responsibility was thus
removed from us until we are more able to handle it (Genesis 3).
Humanity
has aged quite a bit since Adam and Eve. Jesus now provides us again the
opportunity to have access to the tree of eternal life. We also have a
responsibility, like older children, to take care of our younger siblings and
point them to the fullness of that eternal life with Christ. How do we doing
with this responsibility?
[1] Based on the sermon by Captain Michael Ramsay, God: Creator,
Governor, and Preserver of All Things. Presented to Swift Current Salvation
Army, 26 Feb 2012. On-line:
http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2012/02/genesis-1-4-god-creator-governor-and.html
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