WALK DON'T RUN
Photo, Carlita Benazito
“Fear that does not take you to God, will take you away from God.”
Gen 3:8 And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, "Where [are] you?" 10 So he said, "I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself." NKJV
When God, Adam and Eve were in agreement, they walked together in total enjoyment! (see Amos 3:3) God is gracious to give us many liberties. As a matter of fact, where His Spirit is there is liberty! (2Cor. 3:17) However, in their walk, or conversation together, God laid down a deal-breaker: “Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil!” All the other fruit-bearing trees were fair game! Just that one! That was it! So Satan showed up to entice them to disobey, and disobey they did! They bought into the lie that Satan himself had believed just before he and his followers were cast from Heaven to Earth; “You will be like the Most High God!” (Is. 14:14) Here is the deal: it is impossible for us to be like in God having the ability to judge between good and evil! We can only know the difference between good and evil according to God’s word, according to what He calls good and what He calls evil! According to scripture, when Adam sinned so did we all! (Rom. 5:12) From our earliest ability to think, we began to judge according to our own understanding! O my, what a mess that has made through the ages! God alone is capable of judging the motives and intents of the heart. We judge actions based on what the Word of God reveals about behavior.
When man sinned in the garden, it dramatically changed the tone of God’s voice in their hearing. The voice that had brought comfort and joy, now sounded frightful! “They heard His voice and feared and tried to flee from His presence! It is an age old problem. Walking with God and enjoying His friendship, His fellowship and His Lordship is life at it’s very best! When we are afraid of the voice of the One who loved and washed in His own blood, it is because we are not loving Him enough to obey Him, because there is no fear in love! (1Jn. 4:18) Friend, it is far better to walk with God in agreement, than to flee from Him because of disagreement i.e. disobedience. When the two sinned that day, they should have ran to God confessing their sin and calling on Him for mercy! He is ready to forgive! (Ps. 86:5) Who knows how that might have changed the course of History! Let me encourage you to be a HIS-tory maker! Walk with Him and don’t run from Him!
Every blessing!
—Tom