May 20, 2026:

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“Adam made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, ‘With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man.’ Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.”

(Genesis 4.1-2)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

Questions arise in the story begun by the births of Cain and Abel that speak to interactions with the world. Satan actually represents the world creeping into the kingdom of God on earth. He is able to do so as easily as he strolls through the courts of heaven in the story of Job. Our place on earth is given options:

1. We can be as if we are in the Garden (when we know we really aren’t) – in denial.
2. We can be in the world but with a Garden mentality fulfilling our purpose as God has given it to us – reconciled.
3. We can ignore the thought of the Garden and simply be in the world making our own place in it as if we were some kind of god- rebellion or infidel.

And while we long for the Garden we never have experienced perhaps as much as we long for the Heaven we have only glimpsed in the world of the gospel, this world for the moment is all we have. With this world, as we see in the story of creation, comes that awakening of the unexplained “How did that happen?” Those types of questions challenge what we know and what we believe about God, ourselves and the whole of creation as it was, is and is yet to be. They can be defining questions that shape our identity and the living out of our purpose during those days of our lives. That definition will also shape our journey to what comes after those days on earth after this life has ended and the next reality becomes all too real and beyond our imagination.

One of those questions comes in the start of the “people of God” family. If you remember, I make a distinction between “God’s people,” all those who on earth do dwell, and “the people of God,” those who accept Yahweh Elohim as the one true God of Heaven and earth and commit the living of their lives to fulfill His purpose in love to all the world or “God’s people.” So, the start of the “people of God” family. is when, and I love the NIV translation of what happened, “Adam made love to his wife, Eve.” The KJV speaks of Adam “knowing” Eve. It takes a bit of explaining the theology behind that word so that it is understood properly in its context. For the moment, and knowing the world has really fouled the true essence of the phrase the NIV promotes as a good interpretation of the Hebrew “marital intimacy,” Adam’s determination to “make love” to Eve is perhaps no less theologically deep but we ought to get the sense of care and intentionality of what Adam was doing. It is spoken in a very male perspective. It is a “work.” Adam’s consequence for his lack of obeying God and protecting Eve from temptation was to have to work for everything he would have for the rest of his days. In a sense, Adam was taking on the world beyond the Garden. The Garden had been prepared for him to shepherd and steward without struggle or conflict. God took the elements of all creation which existed in chaotic order, disarray and thus without meaning and purpose and made something wonderful, functional and fitted together for worship. Beyond the Garden existed a world that was no longer in chaos as in an inescapable nothingness apart from the Word of God. The world was not stewarded or shepherded. It was wild, unmanaged and structured by wild and unmanaged thinking. Its natural state was raw, unrefined but because it was spoken into being by God the fundamentals were there, but the alignment was disjointed. In other words, it functioned just not in the way it was meant to. For Adam to “make love,” was to present to the world a much different mindset and activity for bringing life into the world than the world had imagined. For Adam, it was a sabbath. It was not a work like any other day. Yes, it was a moment and an action of stewarding and shepherding feelings, emotions, passions, urges and a desire to honor what had appeared shameful because of sin into something as it was in the beginning- beautiful.

To the “outside” world, love did not include God. Love was a thing one did. Some even turned love into their god and the lust and passion of it was what shaped and drove their lives seeking a fulfillment that just couldn’t exist. To the “outside” world, babies were merely products to be used or discarded. Life had little meaning apart from survival and existing to make it from day to day. The agrarian perspective of planting seed for food or spilling it and letting it fall where it may (consider Jesus’ Parable of the Soils, for example) and then harvesting the crop when it happened to be ripe pretty much described the perspective of every aspect of their lives. It just happened and whatever happened happened and that was determined to be the way it was meant to be. But, not to Adam. Adam had seen the Master Plan. He had seen perfection. He had seen harmony. He saw it all in purity. That is, he did until he didn’t. Satan is the liar. He is the spoiler effect. He turns the truth just a fraction so that somehow it still sounds like truth, but it doesn’t. God kept all things in focus, on track and on purpose. With Him all things were possible. That would mean even if something went awry or askew then it would be possible to get back in focus, on track and on purpose… but not by what man tried to do! No, only with God are all those things possible. So, redemption, reconciliation and salvation are only possible by God’s Word. That is why Adam and Eve could not return to the Garden. They would be the agents of chaos and no better than the Serpent. What made the difference for Adam and Eve in the world outside the Garden? Accountability to themselves and to God who saved them from the death they deserved but in mercy and grace had been spared. When Adam “made love” to Eve, it was an act of thanksgiving recognizing what once was dead now lived and was beautiful as in the beginning. It would come with a price of struggle, sweat, hard work and pain but it would all be worth it because God makes it possible.

That is the power of God’s love and why we should love one another that way first! Not in denial but being reconciled. Not in chaos and rebellion but in submission and worship.

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.