Faith or Sin?

Faith or Sin?

“And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

‭‭Genesis‬ ‭2:15-17‬

Did Adam sin because of a lack of faith in God? 

After all, we were created in the image of God, without sin, and with free will. 

We can choose to obey God, place our faith and trust in Him or we can choose to sin. 

We place so much emphasis on sin and sin nature, desensitizing ourselves to the very ugliness of sin and temptation.  Instead we should be emphasizing our faith in God. 

Adam was told not to eat the forbidden fruit by God. It was commanded by his creator. Yet he did. Was it because it was presented to him by Eve?  Adam did not put his faith in God. He lacked the faith necessary to deny the temptation and to obey God instead. 

Sure we can blame sin nature, but God didn’t have sin nature and we were created in His likeness. Sure we can blame the “serpent”, because after all he is the devil. Sure we can blame Eve, she was Adams help mate. And sure, we could blame God, our creator, for allowing us to have this “sin nature” or “fleshly” desire. 

Or, how about we increase our faith in the God that created us and commands us to obey Him?  Instead of minimizing sin, maybe we should maximize our faith. 

A lack of faith in God places a reliance on ourselves and our judgement of what is right and wrong.  Where do you think the human race came up with what was originally considered right and wrong? Our moral compass? We have the ability to do good, just as we have the ability to sin. 

I relied on myself for such a long time for the right decisions, even though they were wrong. I minimized sin because of the results and because I knew sin was wrong but I didn’t want to admit it. 

Instead of obeying God and living to glorify and please Him, I wanted to please myself. 

It’s easy to say that Adam didn’t obey God. That is true. It’s easy to say that Adam sinned. This is also true. But what if Adam had more faith and trust in God, rather than himself?  What if Adam wanted to please God more than himself and more than Eve?

Our faith in God has to be stronger in a growing world filled with sin and temptation if we are going to win the battles that we are presented with. 

We can only win those battles when we place our faith and trust in God. When our eyes are focused on Him everything else is blurred. But if we continue to place our faith and trust in the world, our faith becomes blurred. 

Our faith has to be stronger than our desire to sin. 

“And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.”

‭‭Genesis‬ ‭6:13‬

“Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.”

‭‭Genesis‬ ‭6:22‬