What relationship with God are human beings born into?
There has been plenty of babies born over the years in my circles of peeps, and it's such a pleasure and delight to watch them discover their surroundings, developing in their own likes and dislikes. Also, it's super fun to make silly faces at them to drive the parents bonkers. Babies are so helpless, dependant, and cute. They are also self centered, demanding, and non-stop.
Babies mean work. Hard work. Mundane work. Tedious work. Thankless work.
Parenthood requires that you put your own needs aside to make room for another human being, and realize certain things about yourself along the way as you're figuring out this little person. Giving birth to a baby is bringing forth a complete stranger. This stranger may or may not grow up to be a friend. Some kids can't stand their parents and vice versa. *I joke, but my desire is to have a friendship with each of my kids in the long run, I'm just not delusional about how deep our friendship may be.* It is challenging to get to know a child, because each one is unique. My security is that God created us, for His purpose, and He KNOWS us inside, more than we know ourselves, or are willing to admit. God builds families to define those who belong to Him. Before we assume all babies are drawn to God through Jesus, we must rewind. Let's take a look at the relationship between God and Humanity:
Genesis 2 (ESV)
15 The Lord God took the man kand put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil lyou shall not eat, for in the day that you eat4 of it you mshall surely die.”
God told Adam, "The day you eat of it you shall surely die."
Do you believe God?
Did Adam?
Read the rest of the story about the Fall of Man here.
So, when God threw Adam and Eve out of the Garden, what did that mean for their relationship with God?
I know a few people who would claim that humanities relationship with God was only bruised, because Adam and Eve didn't physically die after they ate the fruit that was forbidden. Because God only put them out of paradise, now all of a sudden man thinks that all he has to do is be obedient, and the relationship will be repaired, over time, because God is Love right? God couldn't have possibly meant what He said. Satan had to have had some 'insider informaton', because he said they wouldn't die, and they didn't, so Satan must have told the truth.
How can something that is Evil do something good?
Who do you believe?
Now, going back to Genesis 2, Adam was to work and keep the Garden. He was told by His Creator to do. We can assume Adam did what he was told. Adams relationship with God was works based. By eating the fruit, ergo'doing', Adam and Eve brought death to the human race. Because of what they did, God cursed the Earth. This curse remains.
God used Cain and Abel to illustrate the now broken relationship Man had with God. Cain and Abel had knowledge of God because His parents had the relationship with Him prior to the Fall. However, this relationship no longer existed, and so Man naturally follows his designed inclination---to do. Abel offered his best produce to God, and so did Cain. But God rejected Cains offering. At first glance this seems entirely unfair. What was the difference?
The Creator has every right to pick whom He shows Grace to. That is the point. Every human being is born into a works-based relationship with God, and only He knows who He has chosen to be plucked from the natural relationship and born again to the supernatural relationship of unmerited Grace, through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Understanding Covenant, as the relationship between God and Man is the foundational stepping stone for how you will accept the rest of Scripture. From Genesis 3 onward is a picture of mans steady decline of self destruction. I'm sure it's hard for anyone to imagine a tiny little baby at animosity with his or her Creator, but this is the truth.
We are born hating God. Oh, we can mimic our parents as good and obedient little children, but unless it is God doing the changing, the work, this child remains in the works based relationship which means death. Just because someone claims to know God, does not mean they know God. Their relationship is severed, destroyed, and the only way it can be reconciled is through the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other way.
Isaiah 1 gives a clear picture of this, as do all the books of the prophets. Man is fallen. It doesn't matter if we say we will do something, we are unable to.
We sin because we are sinners, not sinners because we sin.
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