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#DailyDevotion What Is Dead & What Is Alive?

#DailyDevotion What Is Dead & What Is Alive?

Genesis 3:1–21

The snake was the smartest of all the wild animals the LORD God had made. He asked the woman, “Did God really say, ‘Don’t eat from any tree in the garden?” 2“We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,” the woman answered the snake. 3“But God did say, ‘Don’t eat of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, and don’t touch it, or you will die.’” 4“You’re not going to die,” the snake told the woman. 5“No, God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you’ll be like God and know good and evil.” 6When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good to eat, a delight to look at, and what anyone would want in order to get wise, she took some of its fruit and ate it. Then she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked. They sewed together leaves from a fig tree and made skirts for themselves…9The LORD God called the man. “Where are you?” He asked him…21The LORD God made tunics from skins for the man and his wife and clothed them.

Ok, so I took a huge chunk of verses out for the devotion today. Feel free to go and read them. It’s not that they aren’t important but rather I’m looking at the point in these passages.

First we might want to look at the nature of temptation. First it questions God’s Word. “Did God really say?” If we are being tempted to sin you are going to have to question God’s Word, doubt if God really said it, and/or does it even apply to today. Temptation acts as if God is withholding something from you. It tries to get you to not trust God. In the name of love or rather lust and covetousness and fear, it tries to tell you what you now want to do, which is not good for you is in all actuality good for you. Finally, it twist the truth. In our fall from God’s grace, Satan tells Eve you will be like God knowing good and evil. Well, she and Adam and us did learn what evil is. We however lost our knowledge of what is good and of God.

We must learn to understand death as God sees death. Adam and Eve, and therefore all humanity in them were alive, were living nepheshes before we rebelled against God. When Adam and his wife ate the fruit, they did indeed die on that day. Our living nephesh became dead nepheshes. We are conceived dead and born dead. In modern parlance you could say we became zombies under the control of the prince of the air, i.e. the devil. In Luke 10:60 Jesus says, “Let the dead bury their dead. But you go and tell about God’s kingdom.” In Eph. 2, Paul writes, “ You, too, were dead in your transgressions and sins,..”

Jesus tells us in John 5, “24I tell you the truth, if you listen to what I say and believe Him Who sent Me, you have everlasting life, and you will not be judged, but you have come from death to life.” In Luke 20 Jesus tells us, “38He’s not the God of the dead but of the living. All who are with Him are alive.” When we died spiritually in Genesis which makes our bodies mortal, God gives us life through the promise of the Gospel. God does not want to condemn us to eternal death. So he sought out our parents and gave them a promise, he renewed their spirits. He renewed Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In Christ Jesus he makes you alive again and clothes you with Jesus’ righteousness.

Gracious Father, give us the promise of Jesus so we may pass from death to life in inherit immortality at the revelation of Jesus Christ. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

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Rev. Guillaume J. S. Williams, Sr.

The Reverend Guillaume Williams is the Pastor of Hope Lutheran Chapel of Osage Beach, Missouri. His pastoral ministry with Hope began in 2005 where he preaches the Christ crucified.

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