3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’
Satan always wants us to make God’s simple commands more difficult. We think that everything is too good to be true. But God offers us His grace. The world always twists the Scriptures in an attempt to make God out to be some ogre trying to rob us of all our fun. Satan wins when we add to the Scriptures demands that are not there, that might cause us to walk just a bit further away for God than we might otherwise walk. Even the words that get used betray this kind of prejudice. For instance, Satan says we have to go to church, but we get to fellowship with God and each other. The world says that God says you can marry only one person, but we get to marry one person. The serpent says you can’t eat that fruit, God said you can eat all the other fruit. Many of the restrictions placed on Believers from institutional churches are the voice of the Serpent. “Don’t smoke, don’t chew, don’t go with women who do.” All the dress codes imposed fall into this category as well. The Biblical guideline in dress is “modesty.” The Muslims deal with the lust problem in the men by making the women cover themselves up. That doesn’t make much sense, does it. They never deal with the lust of the men. Jesus-followers are to deal with their lust through repentance and renewing of their minds, not through some external fig leaf. That is why it is important for us to get into the Scripture to hear God’s simple commands for us today. Eve added the stipulation “you must not touch it” to God’s simple command “don’t eat it.” Even being in conversation with the Serpent got Eve nervous. She made God’s simple command more difficult than it really was. She made it complicated. So next time you feel God’s command is complicated, think again. It is either your own mind, or perhaps Satan, adding things that just aren’t there. Go back to the Scriptures and see what God really wants. And then do it with joy, because chances are, it is simple.
The Arnold Journey 