This is the question we were asked last night in the home meeting, and it is a very good one – why do we still seek after many other things when we clearly know from the Bible that only God can satisfy us? Why do we still run to other things and try to find satisfaction in so many things in the world, or even sports, TV, internet, entertainment, games, movies, etc – when we have tasted that the Lord is good and only He satisfies?
We are all like this – even as believers, though we enjoy the Lord and we love Him, we know that He is the Only One who can Fill Us and Satisfy Us, we still have other things that we try to find delight in. Why? I think this question boils down to another question, which believers and unbelievers alike have asked themselves and have asked others,
Why did God put TWO trees in the garden of Eden? Why didn’t He just put the tree of life and told man to eat of it?
It all comes down to these two sources – God as the source of life, and Satan (God’s adversary, His enemy) as the source of death. God as the tree of life comes to us in a simple and open way – to just give us LIFE. If we eat of this tree, we will receive life, even the divine life. This also means that God wants to be our life – He wants to come into us as life and be OUR life within!
When we eat of the Tree of Life, we receive life and we live! On the other hand, the other tree is not so simple – it is not “the tree of death”, but “the tree of knowledge of good and evil”. Satan comes to us not as DEATH, but as KNOWLEDGE of GOOD and EVIL. But as soon as we eat of that tree, we die! We die inwardly by being separated from God, and eventually we die physically and are eternally separated from Him.
So, if God knew all these, why did He gave us a choice? If it were us, we would have put only ONE option in front of man, but God – in His greatness – gave man the choice. He desires man to choose Him willingly and take Him in as life. It’s a tough choice, especially since the tree of knowledge of good and evil is “pleasant to the sight and good for food”.
This situation – man being in front of the two trees – is what we find ourselves in every day! Every day we need to choose between the Lord as life (who wants us to just spend time with Him, call on His name, breathe Him in, fellowship with Him, read His Word in a consistent and regular way, meet with the saints, etc) and Satan as death(who comes to us usually asking us, Did God Really Said you shouldn’t do this? So many others do this and nothing bad happened to them; rather, they look happier…).
O Lord Jesus! We have a free will – we can choose God as life or choose to have the knowledge of good and evil (which results in death). The Lord is here, giving Himself to us as life, and Satan is here with many other complicated and complicating things – ready to dead-ify us, to impart death to us.
The choice is ours – may the Lord strengthen us into our inner man to choose Him more and more, even to attach ourselves to Him as the source of life! We want life – we want more of the divine life! Even if this means that we “waste ourselves on Him”, that we waste our teenage years on the Lord, or that we seemingly don’t do many things outwardly to accomplish something humanly.
Just give yourself to the Lord to love Him, enjoy Him, and even waste yourself on Him! He as the most Precious One is worthy of our offering. He will grow in us and reward us with more of His divine life.
Lord, strengthen us into our inner man every day – make our inner man the strongest part in our being! Strengthen us to choose You! Lord, we want LIFE! We want more of the divine life! Save us from choosing knowledge or any other things. Thank You for coming to us as the tree of life – daily so available and so life-giving! Impart life to our mind, Lord, to think the way You do! Impart life to our whole being! Strengthen our will to choose You today!
Amen, this was helpful. We must choose to eat the tree of life!