God loves you. He created you and He is proud of you. No one else thinks so well of you as God does. In God’s eyes, you are beautiful, you are wonderfully made by Him and He wants you to be successful. God is gracious and God loves you deeply regardless of what mistakes you have made.  His plans for you are always to give you a hope and a future.

If you are a good parent, you will know that you will not withhold any good thing from your child. You will give what you believe is the best for them. You would always want to lavish good gifts to your child. This is how God loves us (Matthew 7:11).

Eve fell into the trap of the serpent because Eve did not give a deeper thought to think that a God who had custom-made the entire earth so perfectly for her would not have withheld a fruit from her if that fruit is good for her.

God is not against you in any way. If He is, He would not need to waste time testing you. With just a word, you would have been destroyed.

Imagine if you love someone and you are always planning the best gifts for that person and there is never a time you will ever withhold any good from that person. However, that person do not believe you are that good and would even think that  you have kept the best for yourself, would you not feel very hurt?

This is the reason why the devil will always want you to doubt God’s goodness towards you— it is the way to hurt God.

If you are a parent, you will know that the most painful thing for us is to see our children walking into a wrong path in life and having their lives ruined. Our children perceive that we are angry when in reality we are feeling the pain and fear of seeing them suffering in life. If we can, we would rather choose to suffer in their place.

Our heavenly Father is a God of justice. He had to pronounce the curse. However, it was excruciating pain for Him to see Adam and Eve made that mistake. Hence, even as God spoke the curse, He also established the redemption plan. At that instance, God had made the painful decision that His Son will one day come to this world to die for mankind and to redeem all who believes in Him.

In Genesis 2:9, it was stated that the tree of life was already in the midst of the garden and in Genesis 2:16, the LORD God said that Adam may eat from any tree in the garden (inclusive of the tree of life) except for the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The fact that God provided the tree of life right from the start is proof that God did not withhold any good thing from Adam and Eve.

In Genesis 3:21, it was stated that the LORD God made garments of animal skins for Adam and Eve and clothed them. This again tells us that despite their sins, God loved Adam and Eve and He clothed them.

To make garments of animal skins, it means that some animal has to die. This gives us a hint that there was already an animal sacrified to become the sin offering for Adam and Eve so that their sins can be forgiven.

Genesis 3:6 stated that Eve saw that the fruit was good for food (lust of the flesh), and delightful to the eyes (lust of the eyes) and will make one wise (pride of life), so she ate the forbidden fruit. Many people compare this verse to 1 John 2:16(ESV) where apostle John stated that the desires of the eyes, the desires of the flesh and the pride of life are not from the Father but from the world and hence conclude that we are sinning when we have pride in our life and are tempted by what we see and what our flesh craves. Most people will fail in trying to overcome these 3 areas. For instance, on the subject of pride, it is a thin line between having a positive pride in striving for excellence in our work versus a negative pride that cause us to be offended when someone criticise us.

Instead of trying to fight the desires of our eyes, flesh and pride, we should understand that when apostle Paul wrote 1 John 2:16, it also meant that these are the 3 weapons/ strategies that the devil will use on us. It used that on Eve and succeeded. Instead of trying to fight our human nature, and condemn it as sinful nature, we should instead recognise that Christ has already overcome the world. He has given us the Holy Spirit. So we must use our weapon to fight the spiritual war, not condemn ourselves.

Hence, we should recognise that if we abide in Christ and live by the Spirit, we are no longer subject to the law of Moses (Galatians 5:18). The solution is to abide in the love of our heavenly Father (1 John 2:15) and to remain in Christ (John 5:17) and live by the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:19). When we stand firm in the victory position that Christ has won for us, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life will have no power over us.

When Jesus Christ died for our sins, all our sins (past, present and future) are forgiven. We are made holy and without a single fault, forever ( colossians 1:22). Christ has broken every curse and made us holy.

Nevertheless, when we do wrong, there are consequences that we have to face. This is the chastisement. However, as long as we continue to walk with Christ, live by the Holy Spirit, we can overcome whatever difficulties. God will turn our setbacks into success. God will turn even the chastisement into something very good for us.

You can be a believer simply by saying this prayer:

Dear God, thank you for so wonderfully make me and thank you for sending your Son, LORD Jesus to die for me so that I can have the blessed life that you intended for me — a life of leadership and fruitfulness. Now I believe and accept Jesus as my LORD and Saviour. Fill me with the Holy Spirit of God. I believe that from this time forth, I am a new creation, I am born again and I have the eternal life that Jesus came to give me. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.