This week seemed to be a difficult week for some people.  If it wasn’t income related it was relationships. It seems people in the faith are always going through something involving somebody else.

One thing we know from our biblical history is the fall of Adam and Even in the Garden of Eden. When Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and later Adam, they became like God in their knowledge and then the great fall happened. Instead of enjoying the benefits of being the children of God in the flesh, they soon were at the mercy of their inner selfish selves. The division between God and man because of sin began.

People in the faith often don’t realize that the fall was not just between us and God but also the fall happened between us and other people as well as us to ourselves.

From that act of disobedience, the relationship between Adam and Eve had changed. No longer were they pure in God’s sight but they were guilty in the way they saw each other. Adam immediately put the blame for their action on Eve when they were confronted by God over what they had done.

Genesis 3:12, The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” 13, Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done? ” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

The term to describe this action today would be “blame throwing,” a lack of accountability for your actions. From this point we see that Adam, the leader of his relationship did not take responsibility for his actions and blamed the very person he is supposed to love and support. From living Godly they were now living carnal self-centered lives.

We today, because of this action from thousands of years ago, struggle in our relationships with others and even with ourselves. The bible shows and tells us the right way to live, but being sinful, we have a very hard time living that way every day. In the world most people give into their ways, often out of ignorance, deception, and personal pride.

Even for ourselves we live in a way where we are centered in our universe when that place belongs to God. The world we live in champions the idea that we should live for ourselves but as we know from scripture, that way leads to death. James 4:1 reminds us that the struggle is real in us but the solution is beyond us and with God. As a fallen person we have to put to death those ways in us as part of our duty to our Heavenly Father. Living a Godly existence is still hard in this word and it is not trouble free, but the reward we reap from it goes beyond our mortal lives.

It is important to remember that the troubles we see in this world and the trouble we have in our lives can be traced back to the fall in the Garden of Eden but it is still our individual relationship with God is where the changes begin and the successes are made. Jeus Christ also paid the price for our reconcilement to God so someday we will return to the glory we do not have now.

In Christ,

Stephan M. Koenig
Lake Shore Fellowship