‘Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.’ -Genesis 3:22-24
I was reading this chapter this morning as I was spending time with the Lord, and I just thought I’d say a little something about it. I think this shows a pattern to how God works in our lives sometimes. There are times that He denies us things that are right and good, in and of themselves, but because of our circumstances or what season of life we are in, he denies them to us. On the surface it makes Him appear cruel or uncaring, but that couldn’t be any further from the truth. In this instance, God was denying Adam and Eve, who are now spiritually dead and stained with sin, the fruit of life that would have made the reversing and redeeming of their sin and disobedience impossible. He desired to reconcile His creation back to Himself, and therefore he had to deny them something that under different circumstances He would have given in abundance. Because God held back that blessing from our ancestors, we now as believers have received the promise of the eternal life God always intended for us! When we pass from this existence into the eternal existence Christ is preparing for us, God will allow us to eat from the tree of life for the rest of our lives! (Rev. 22:1-5) Praise God in His sovereignty, and how He knows what is best for us, because he knows us better than we know ourselves, even the very hairs on our head He has counted!
Filed under: Reflections
