A Chance to Choose

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Genesis 2:17.
Our first parents, though created innocent and holy, were not placed beyond the possibility of wrongdoing…. They were to enjoy communion with God and with holy angels; but before they could be rendered eternally secure, their loyalty must be tested. At the very beginning of man’s existence a check was placed upon the desire for self-indulgence, the fatal passion that lay at the foundation of Satan’s fall. The tree of knowledge, which stood near the tree of life in the midst of the garden, was to be a test of the obedience, faith, and love of our first parents. While permitted to eat freely of every other tree, they were forbidden to taste of this, on pain of death. They were also to be exposed to the temptations of Satan; but if they endured the trial, they would finally be placed beyond his power, to enjoy perpetual favor with God….
God might have created man without the power to transgress His law; He might have withheld the hand of Adam from touching the forbidden fruit; but in that case man would have been, not a free moral agent, but a mere automaton. Without freedom of choice, his obedience would not have been voluntary, but forced. There could have been no development of character…. It would have been unworthy of man as an intelligent being, and would have sustained Satan’s charge of God’s arbitrary rule.
God made man upright; He gave him noble traits of character, with no bias toward evil. He endowed him with high intellectual powers, and presented before him the strongest possible inducements to be true to his allegiance. Obedience, perfect and perpetual, was the condition of eternal happiness. On this condition he was to have access to the tree of life….
So long as they remained loyal to the divine law, their capacity to know, to enjoy, and to love would continually increase. They would be constantly gaining new treasures of knowledge, discovering fresh springs of happiness, and obtaining clearer and yet clearer conceptions of the immeasurable, unfailing love of God.
Conflict and Courage p. 13
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Prayer Requests
—–Please pray for my son-in-law. He has skin cancer that is the fast actting kind. He had tests run today to see if they had gone to his lymph nodes. Tomorrow they will make an appointment with an oncologist and a surgeon. Please keep our family in prayer and for healing. Linda J.
—–Please pray for Lorna. Her dog tripped her and she fell and broke her tibia. It is so swollen that they sent her home until tomorrow when she has an appointment with an orthopedic doctor. Please pray for quick healing. Also please pray for Hudson who went to the ER last night with heart problems. Rose
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Dear Friends,
For a time, Esther was allergic to gluten. One day she called me and told me that she was not feeling well. As she told me the symptoms, I became pretty sure that she had somehow eaten something with gluten in it. She assured me that she had not had anything that would cause her problems. Normally she could get away with eating food that said that it had been manufactured on equipment that had been used for wheat. Occasionally, there was enough residue to cause problems. I think that, combined with a very stressful and busy two months was why the pain was back.
It’s hard to imagine how the residue of an allergin on manufacturing equipment can be enough to cause an allergic reaction, but it is. I sometimes have the same problem with my dairy allergy. Usually it does not bother me, but if the food happens to be the first batch just after a batch of dairy-containing food has been run, I’ll get an allergy attack.
Even so, a little sin in our life will spoil our whole Christianity. Solomon puts it this way, “Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour.” Ecc 10:1 So true. How often we have been overcome by the evil one because we have allowed him an entrance through some cherished sin. Indeed, the Great God of the Universe warns, “Behold, the LORD?S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.” Isa 59:1, 2 That is not to say that He will not hear the prayer of repentance, for He is yearning for us to let go of our darling sin, confess that sin, and allow Him to cleanse us from it. <1 John 1:9> With tears in His Voice, He pleads, “As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, for why will ye die?” Eze 33:11
May we pray as did David, “Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit.” “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.” Ps 51:9-12, 19:14
Rose