The Distorted World of Sin (Lent 2, 2024)

I wonder what it might have been like for Adam and Eve. 
To walk with God with no filter, no blinders, no fear.
Wow: only total clarity. 
Adam and Eve had a before-and-after-sin in their view of God. 

It’s an amazing thought because we only have an “after view”, a veiled view of Jesus, and our total clarity view will wait until heaven.

Eating from the tree in the middle of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was forbidden.  The crafty serpent painted a different, false, and distorted view of who God is.  The serpent did not portray God as love, but instead as selfish, withholding something for His own control and power. 

In the aftermath, the issue of sin has distorted our view of God.  It has incapacitated us.  We have no capability to see God’s love unfiltered.  It’s more than we could handle as sinners in our distorted world of sin. 

Scripture tells us that fear has to do with punishment, and punishment didn’t exist prior to sin.  Adam and Eve weren’t created to be punished, but to be loved. Adam and Eve became afraid because they knew they’d sinned and feared punishment. 

In the distorted world Adam and Eve left behind,
we sin… and God punishes sin. 
We experience both fear and guilt.

But God is altogether different.
God is perfect love.  And perfect love drives out fear.

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment” (1 John 4:18)

Exercise Your Faith:

Think back over a sin you know you have committed or an area where you fell short.  Why do you remember it?  Embarrassment?  Conscience?  Self-loathing at falling short and a desire for perfection?  Perfect love drives it all out.  Take that sin, visualize it, and stamp it with “God already knows. I have no fear. ‘For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.’” (Hebrews 10:14). God is faithful to forgive.

Join me tomorrow for the issue of forgiveness and its relation to seeing God’s love.

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If you’re already signed up on my Home Page sidebar to receive posts, you’ll get the 2024 Lent Devotionals automatically. Or you can “Like” Seminary Gal on Facebook and they’ll be delivered to your Facebook news feed. If you haven’t signed up, today is a great day to do so. Advent and Lenten devotionals remain among my most popular offerings. You don’t want to miss this encounter with God to prepare your heart for Easter! Understanding that prior years’ devotionals continue to minister, you may want to have access to a full series ahead of time:

• Lent 2013 looked at The Letter to the Romans: Paul’s Masterpiece to reclaim foundations of our Christian heritage and began February 13, 2013.
•  A very special and ever popular offering was Lent 2014’s Be Still and Know that I AM God  which can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014. 
• Lent 2015 began on February 18, 2015 with a series entitled With Christ in the Upper Room: Final Preparations.  We explored what is often called “The Upper Room Discourse” found in John chapters 13-17. 
• ReKindle, the Lent 2016 series, began on February 10, 2016 and encouraged us to rekindle our spiritual lives.
• Light: There’s Nothing Like It was the 2017 Lent series and explored this metaphor often used to portray Christ.  It is archived beginning March 1, 2017.
• Lent 2018, we explored the questions of Pi and Chi (the Greek letter beginning the word Christos, which means Christ, Messiah, the Anointed One). We asked and answered the questions “Why?” from the movie Life of Pi as we discovered the uniqueness of Jesus Christ in a world of many faiths.
• Lent 2019 gave us a deeper window into Easter “More to the Easter Story” since we miss so much when we rely only on a superficial understanding of the work of Christ. These devotionals are archived beginning March 6, 2019.
• Our Lent 2020 devotional series offered prayer points surrounding “Be Thou My Vision” and were aimed at helping us to see God for who He is. The full set of devotionals are archived beginning February 26, 2020.
• The theme for 2021 Lent Devotionals was how to live between two worlds while waiting for Christ’s return. Into the gap between the City of Man and its fixation upon sin and the City of God with its demand for holiness, two words minister peace: But God. Praise God for His intervention! They are archived beginning February 17, 2021.
• Revelation in 40 devotionals for 2022 offered 40 vignettes, scenes, concepts, and thoughts to inspire us to read the Book of Revelation as it is written and to go deeper. They are archived beginning March 2, 2022.
• Last year’s devotionals “Created to Display His Image” explored what it truly means to be made in God’s Image and the profound significance of that fact. They are archived beginning February 22, 2023.