Monday 20 July 2015

Ashamed

And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. – Genesis 3.7

The end of Genesis 3.6 tells us that Adam and Eve succumbed to the wiles of the devil. They took the forbidden fruit from the tree and everything changed. The had one rule, one, and even before sin entered in they could not obey the one rule God gave.  They walked in harmony with God and in relationship with Him in the wonderful Garden of Eden and still they could not obey one rule.

They sinned – and the first thing we see is that they notice their nakedness, try to cover themselves, and then they tried to hide from God.

The basic truth here is that sin causes guilt and guilt brings shame and shame drives us away from God.

I suspect that this is the beginning of what has gone on ever since. Man is guilty and the easiest thing to do is not to sort things out, but just hide and try to ignore God.

And man would have stayed that way if God had not sought him out.

The wonderful truth is that God chooses to seek us out even when we try to hide from Him or ignore Him or run from Him. He still reaches out to us.

Our best efforts to hide our sin are always going to fail. Our best efforts to hide from God will always let us down.

But the great truth is that He reaches out to us to restore us to fellowship with Him. He longs for those walks with Him. Only he can take away the shame and the guilt.

No comments: