Renewed Hope

Part 2, Our animalistic nature and temptation

I finished the last post with these words:

And the Lord God had said, that in the day that you"eatest thereof ( of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) thou shalt surely die."  Whenever I, by choice, whether knowingly or unknowingly, follow desire or lust I have chosen to respond to something externally  based on how it will "make me feel, make me wise., etc.  rather than  to choose to drink of the internal life of God which fills me by Holy Spirit.  I cannot use my will to "make myself feel good" and drink of the water of Life in Christ Jesus at the same time. 

Our language of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil comes in many expressions.  And when we understand this we will understand Genesis 3:16 more fully.  And I will save this for yet another time of musing. 

When the serpent tempted woman in the Garden, he appealed to her "desire" or what some of us might call our "lust." We women can especially identify with this when it comes to some handsome young man who comes into our life and suddenly we feel that great sense of warmth, an actual physical feeling. I can still remember sitting in my boyfriend Bill's Studebaker in front of my mom's house at about age 16, and Bill reached over and held my hand. I still remember that warm feeling that filled my body.  The men reading this will probably identify with the stimulating feeling in the genital area of your body when you see a sexy woman go by.  That is "desire." That is "lust."   It is neither good nor bad in and of itself because it is an operation of our human being just as it is of the rest of the animal kingdom.  The difference between us as humans and the rats and dogs and the cats is that we have the ability to recognize that "desire" or "lust" and choose whether or not we will respond to it or whether we will choose to address that desire or lust with other choices, other thinking, stirring up other feelings.  One way of describing such a process is the "renewing of our minds."  It is a process and doesn't happen without some kind of intervention and invitation to make a choice.  Sometimes many of us "delayed" gratification of that lust because we "thought it was wrong" and stuffed it down only to find that it wasn't something that disappeared and often then it  was gratified  "sideways."

The result of woman being "deceived" by all that "stirred her" externally as the animal aspect of our human nature was stirred by the invitation to feel good (which invitation itself stirs the desire and creates a state of feeling already which then we have choice to deal with if we are aware) was that she made the choice unwittingly  to invite the deception of the pull of her own animalistic desire to separate herself from the Source of Life itself. Her relationship in and by the Spirit of God was broken as she yielded to an external source which had made her "feel good."

The ultimate result found in Genesis 3:16 (please note the similarity to John 3:16 which is the redemption from Genesis 3:16) ...that woman's DESIRE would be for her husband and he would rule over her.

How often have I heard people refer to Geneisis 3:16 as the basis of male and female relationships as Christians in their own sense of deception and ignorance?  Of course I can talk about "them" knowing that I spent most of my adult LIVING in that sense of deception and error, in that place of desire and lust.  My language of those years and sometimes even now  tells the tale.   He makes me feel good. He makes me happy.  He upsets me  Even as parents how often are we deceived in our understanding as we say things like: My child frustrated me. My child made me angry. You made me feel good. You made me mad.  

These are all the language of deception come from our animalistic nature which was fed by the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
If I am dependent on you to make me feel good, to make me happy, then what am I without you?   Therefore, I will continue to "desire you" because I need you and am dependent upon you to make me feel good. (my dopamine delivery system working at its best.) 

When we look at the other side of the "fall of man", what we see is the difference between woman's deception and man's knowing choice.
Woman's fall came out of the deception of "feeling" and "desire" which overwhelmed her ability to make a decision. She was deceived into thinking that that "feel good state" was something that her relationship with God had kept her from having.  You know something....it was true. That isn't how we function when we are in Christ. It isn't about my feelings.  Joy isn't about "feeling joy."  Being blessed isn't about "being happy".  Being at Peace, isn't about feeling peaceful.  It is a state of being that comes from relationship IN Peace Himself, in the Beloved, being in the Joy Giver.  Yet, how often do we still talk about "how good it felt to be in church!!" How good it felt to be in the presence of God!!    yikkes....that cuts some of us to the core of our "spirituality" doesn't it!! 

So what was the story of Adam's sin?   If you read the scriptures it says, "The woman you gave me to be with me,, she gave me of the tree and I did eat "(KJV).  Earlier it is said: "She took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat." The big difference between the two actions of woman and man, is that she was deceived or "beguiled" as KJV puts it.  She also said of the situation: "The serpent beguiled me and I did eat."  We are able to understand now that her "eyes were opened" and she saw the consequences of her actions, that she had indeed been "beguiled or deceived."  If one wants to interpret this to say she "blamed the serpent", I personally think that that is not within the context of this scripture. It would, on the other hand, appear to be "an eye opener," to see that indeed she had been deceived, fooled and that she had responded to that state by eating of it.    Is that blame?  

Now it comes to Adam.  We know that Adam had been told as we see in Gen: 3 11, that he had been "commanded" not to eat.  Back to Genesis 2: 17. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good nad evil, though shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest therefore thou shalt surely die."    But that is not the end of the Lord God's conversation with Adam.  He also said  BEFORE WOMAN WAS CREATED....at the time the commandment to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that It is  not good that man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him."  Scripture goes on to say that when woman was brought to man  Adam said, This is now bone of my bons, and flesh of my flesh; she sall be called Woman, because she was taken out of an.  Therefore shall aman leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And they were  both naked, the man and hiw wife and they were not ashamed.

Prior to Adam partaking of the fruit that woman was to give him, he lived in relationship to her in a state of "fellowship."  He saw in her some "parts of himself" that previously had been a part of his own being....now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.  She shall be called Woman because she was taken out of Man."

Now the commandment had been given to man and he was not deceived or beguiled.    The serpent hadn't worked that animalistic type of "desire" on man as he had with woman whereby she made the decision to eat of the fruit out of what we might call an "altered state of being."  I am kind of laughing at this as I look back at my own life and realize how often I made decisions out of an "altered state of being."  Something or someone had "made me feel" a certain way and I unwittingly responded to the situation or person out of that altered state of being. We understand today from the research that has opened up our understanding and given us knowledge even as God has spoken saying that in the last days knowledge will abound, that this is all about our "dopamine pathways".  We understand this when it comes to pornography, that there is a physical change in the structure of the brain when people continue to get sexual stimulation from looking at sexually stimulating pictures.  And that stimulation creates a "demand" in the brain each time the brain visualizes anything like it for more and more of that stimulation. The same with gambling.  The more thrill you get "from" gambling, the more desire a person will have that draws them back to gambling.  The same is with extreme sports, sometimes with exercise, often with food, and even work!  

So where was Adam at the time that woman handed him the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?  Unlike woman (she had not yet been named Eve)  who was in a state of deception due to whatever animalistic desire had been activated in her brain and had overpowered her ability to make a --for lack of a better word, a rational decision based on what God had told Adam.  Adam had full control of his decision making process. And what did he know?  He knew that God had told him not to eat of it if he wanted to live.  He also knew that since woman had eaten of it and was now separated from him, that God had also said : It is not good for man to be alone."  He knew that this woman he was now separated and he chose to receive the fruit rather than be separated from that was "bone of his bones, flesh of his flesh."    He was not in the "heat of desire."  He was not under the influence of a Satanic  deception.  Adam sinned knowingly, choosing separation from God rather than separation from "bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh."    

In the business that I have been in for 12 years and from my life experience, I can still say that while the male species does succumb to "desire and lust" as do all of us human beings since "sin entered into the human lifestyle and children were begat out of desire rather than conceived by and in the prescence of God as before the Fall" I continue to see men make horrendous decision just because they don't want to be "alone, without a woman."

Alone even for many of us females seems like a death sentence in itself. AH, sounds a little like "original sin?"   

I have to say that I can identify with that. There were times in my life I did not have faith and trust that the Lord God  could keep me if I didn't have the husband I had there to meet my needs.  And I certainly didn't know how to trust in the Lord to meet my needs when I had a husband who "didn't meet all my needs and expectations."

The end result of this sin of Adam and woman:   Besides saying that he would "greatly multiply thy sorrow and they conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children;   He says....and thy desire shall be  to they husband, and he shall rule over thee. "


The quickest way to give another person power over you is to "expect them to make you happy."  We use this kind of language all the time, sometimes expressed in the positive. "You make me happy."   or in the negative  "You make me sad."   THIS is the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Our original sin, as some call it, is relying on something outside of ourselves to affect our feelings instead of taking responsibility for our own feelings and realizing they come from our experiences and are there to "give us choices to act with our will."  So when I am angry, I accept that those are my feelings, based on my experiences that were stirred up by the way I think about something that has happened.   This is the freedom that we have in Christ Jesus. To make choices based on who we are, how we feel and then to be able to be "renewed in the spirit of our minds" according to the Mind of God as stirred in us by the Holy Spirit....to as many who have received the Spirit by faith in Jesus Christ.

When I look to you and say you make me happy, that "feeling" is now controlling me and I WILL expect you to be the agent to affect my emotions again and again. And if you don't.....I will feel violated, and I will blame you for "making me angry" and put the responsibility on you to change you, instead of seeing the whole situation with my feelings and my happiness and my anger as something that comes from and out of my relationship with the Holy Spirit with whom I am connected spirit to Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ, when I became a "new creature" in Christ Jesus, instead of the old man after my animalistic nature acquired through the first Adam when he knowingly separated himself from Life in God.

Sin is "missing the mark."  What is the mark?  RELATIONSHIP IN AND WITH GOD.   Missing the mark is not violating the Law.  When I violate the Law, I missed the mark of relationship in Jesus Christ.  Life in Christ who fulfilled the Law frees me from the consequences of violating the law which is death and separation from God.  When Adam ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he chose gratification by his own will and choice rather that ongoing Life and it's gratification in God.  Gratification by our own will always feeds more and more "desire" for more gratification. And that desire is illuminated by our understanding of what is "good and bad."   Knowledge of good and evil, says Paul, is a force working in me that is independent or separated from my conscious choice. (Rom. 6-8)  What is my salavation from such "knowing?" Life in Christ Jesus accessed through response to the gentle invitation of Holy Spirit to have faith (the measure of is given to each to believe) in the invitation and availability of His life.

Part 3 will follow some day...