May 15, 2026:

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“To Adam He said, ‘Because you listened to the woman and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you must not eat, I tell you- cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.’”

(Genesis 3.17)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

It is one thing to abuse the environment we live in, it is another to do so to those we share it with. God told Adam (and thus He tells us) that our sin is toxic to everything we are because it separates us from God. I want to be sure we hear the focus of what I suggested. It does not separate God from us. We know from Paul’s words in Romans 8.38, “Nothing can separate us from the love of God….” God’s love always has the last word. Whether it is the last word we truly want to hear is all up to us. God’s love includes reconciliation and separation. It is hard to accept that truth when we have been told, with a worldly definition of love, that God is love and He will always love us. Too many believe that their understanding of love as entitlement and total acceptance of “whatever I believe is right for me” is the definition of God’s love. It is not. Jesus showed the depth of this as He prayed in the Garden before His arrest that would leave to His crucifixion. He said, “When it is all said and done, Your will not Mine be done.”

So, while nothing can separate us from the love of God, His love is just and is ultimately welcoming or rejecting, we can separate ourselves from the blessing of goodness which His love can provide. His love includes Heaven and Hell. It is a hard thing to wrap our mind around but we must. In some way, when I hear people say “life is hell,” I get it. Adam was sent out of the Garden when peace existed in perfection and the environment of life flourished in abundance and perfect harmony with each other. Yet, just on the other side, life did not. It struggled and warred and became a battle of wills for simple survival. It wasn’t simple at all. It took more strength and energy than mortal man can possess. And we are still trying to possess as if we can do better than God to make a true life. True life can only come from God. In our outside world there will be trouble, toil, tribulation and triumph. We can experience moments of personal satisfaction and achievement but all of that simply does not add up to eternal life where peace, love and joy abide completely. When will we hear what God has said to Adam and to us and finally surrender to it. One way or another, in spite of all our efforts to the contrary, God’s will shall be done.

That is why, God spoke to the Serpent (putting him on warning) and Eve (warned too but with a promise) first. God was giving Adam the full parameter of His decision and announced the consequences that must be accepted. We took “easy” off the table. But God was making a way for it to be better. God was making a way so that regardless of the circumstances we face in a sinful broken world where we all are sinners falling short, we could find our way back to better. And it is promised to not only be better than what it is for us now (and sometimes that is hard for us to be it can happen when the season of distress storms around us), but it will be “good and very good” as it was in the beginning. Only God can make this happen. There is nothing we can do but to be faithful to the life we are given to live. It is not fair that because of Adam and Eve we live in a hellish world where heaven is just a breath away. And it is on a daily basis. We see glimpses of it all the time: sunrises and sunsets, babies of all kinds being born in innocence, acts of kindness and charity where none was expected, the sacrifice of life because love knows no other way, the healing of wounds and woundedness as only a loving God can effect, even our own survival because of an indominable Spirit which God breathed into us and most of all- the Cross. “For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son to show us how much. Whosoever would believe in Him and the outrageousness of true love will not die but have everlasting life.” (John 3.16) And there it is… Satan told the truth but made it sound like a lie. He said, “You will not die.” No, we won’t but what kind of life do we want? What kind of eternal life do we want? How many times did we say to ourselves, “I wish I could die” and didn’t really mean and then the sadness of those who did and discovered the truth, “You will not die.” So, Adam and Eve had to struggle outside of the Garden but not without God’s abiding presence and promise that there is a better way than the one they had chosen without Him. It was always about a choice. Choose Him or anything else, but only He can make the way better and bring it to “good and very good.” Choose life- His life, His love, His way as Jesus showed us and the victory is our in Jesus. “Faith is the victory that overcomes the world.” (1 Corinthians 15.57; 1 John 5.4)

TODAY’S PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness but as righteous works of faith, hope and love in Jesus’ name. AMEN.