Who Am I Really?

Who am I really?  Why do I look and act the way I do?  Why am I here, what is the purpose for my life?  Does God even know I exist? And what’s really in it for me?

If you have ever asked yourself any of these questions, you are not alone. Would you believe that you can find the answers to not only these questions but many others in the Bible?

If you’ve searched everywhere in this world for answers but still aren’t satisfied, why not give God and His Word, the Bible, a chance?  You have nothing to lose, but you may just gain more than you could ever imagine.

Let’s start by trying to answer the puzzling question — who am I? When building a puzzle you begin by assembling the borders so you have reference points, and then you fill in all of the colorful pieces by working from the outside and moving in toward the center. If you started from the inside, you would quickly get lost, because you have no frame of reference.

Join me as we discover who you really are and why you are her.

To solve the puzzle of who you truly are, you need to start at the dawn of human history, in the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. Here you will find the pieces to begin to build the borders of your life so that you can fill in the colorful pieces that make you who you are.

Your Family Tree Begins with Adam and Eve

The first chapter of Genesis explains very clearly that heaven and earth were created by God in just six days. God spoke the word and everything He commanded came into existence. However, He saved his final and most beloved creation — man and woman — for the sixth day when He used His own hands to create them in his own image. He brought them to life by breathing His own spirit into them.  Adam and Eve are all of our great (I don’t know how many times) grandparents. This is where your family tree begins.

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

²⁷ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

²⁸ And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

²⁹ And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.

³⁰ And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.

³¹ And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Genesis 1:26-31 (ESV) 

What did God mean when He said “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness?”  Does it mean that when you look in the mirror that is what God looks like? Because God is spirit, he does not resemble a human being’s reflection.  Making man and woman in His image does not refer to physical appearance — our flesh and blood. We were made to resemble God’s characteristics. However this doesn’t mean men and women are equal with God, for in (Hebrews 2:7) we find that God made us a little lower than the angels.

In the second chapter of Genesis we find the explanation for the creation of man:

⁷  then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. Genesis 2:7 (NIV)

God did three amazing things in this verse.  He formed our body and soul out of the dust from the ground.  And then He breathed His spirit into us and we became a living being.

Let’s take a look at each of these three amazing parts that make you who you are: your Body, your Soul, and your Spirit.

Your Body

• You are made up of 206 bones that are connected by tendons, ligaments, and cartilage, with over half of your bones in just your hands and feet.
• You have twelve complex biological systems working together inside of you, including:
  • Circulatory — moves blood, nutrients, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and hormones, around the body.
  • Digestive — consists of a series of connected organs that allow the body to break down and absorb food and remove waste.
  • Respiratory — allows you to take in vital oxygen and expel carbon dioxide.
  • Nervous — controls both voluntary action (like conscious movement) and involuntary actions (like breathing), and sends signals to different parts of the body.
  • Muscular — consists of about 650 muscles that aid in movement, blood flow, and other bodily functions.
  • Immune — the body\’s defense against bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens that may be harmful.
  • You have five vital organs that are essential for survival:
    • Your brain is the body\’s control center, receiving and sending signals to other organs through the nervous system.
    • Your heart is responsible for pumping blood throughout your body.
    • Your kidneys remove waste and extra fluid from the blood.
    • Your liver has many functions, including detoxifying harmful chemicals, breaking down drugs, filtering blood, and secreting bile and producing blood-clotting proteins.
    • Your lungs are responsible for removing oxygen from the air and transferring it to our blood where it can be sent to our cells, and removing carbon dioxide.

Did you know

• The human body contains nearly 100 trillion cells. 
• The average adult takes over 20,000 breaths a day.
• Your heart averages 103,680 beats every 24 hours and beats between 2.5 and 3 billion times in an average lifetime.
• You’re made up of approximately 100,000 miles of arteries, veins, and capillaries, which if placed end to end could go around the world four times.
• Your brain is made of approximately 100 billion nerve cells called neurons that gather and transmit electrochemical signals telling different parts of your brain to carry out different tasks.

Isn’t it amazing how all of these functions and parts work together in harmony, without you even thinking about it? God is amazing isn’t He, so what does that make you? You are God’s amazing creation.

Your Soul

Your physical body cannot exist without a soul. It is the psychological element that makes up your personality and gives you your identity. Your soul has three basic functions:

• Your mind
• Your emotions
• Your will

Your Mind: Thinking, Reasoning, and Choosing

God gave you the ability to think, to reason, and to make decisions. Reason is related to the brain, for it is only as the brain operates that reason occurs. No other creature on earth has this ability.

Raymond C. Stedman, in his series on Understanding Man, refers to this ability as God’s supreme gift to mankind:

Our mental faculties are a tremendous gift from God. Basically they are the ability to reflect on circumstances and facts, and relate our attitude or activity to these. There is a logicality that must prevail. The question of the mind is always: Is the action about to be taken, or the attitude about to be formed, a rational one? Is it consistent with the facts? In many respects this amazing ability to reason, to exercise rationality, is God\’s supreme gift to mankind. Rationality demands that the whole man become involved, that one acts as a total being. Irrationality, or insanity, is the action of a person based on only part of his being — only his emotions, or even the direct activity of the will, apart from the exercise of mind or emotions. But rationality insists that the total man be involved, therefore the mind must come into play.

Your Emotions: Feelings and Desire for Fellowship

The emotional part of your human nature is the seat of your feelings or sentiments. God also gave you a desire for fellowship, to be with others. Just as God desires to be with each of us, God never intended for you to be alone.

¹⁸ The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” ¹⁹ Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. ²¹ So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. ²² Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. Genesis 2:18-22 (NIV)

In verse 18 God said “It is not good for man to be alone.”  Why did He say that? Loneliness is undoubtedly the most widespread source of human misery in the world today, and is now thought to be the single greatest cause of suicide in this country.

Your Will: Ability to Decide and Choose

God gave you your will, not just an animalistic will to survive, but, a free will (volition) meaning the ability to say yes or no. The soul is the seat of your will (our power to choose) and no other creature on earth has this power.

Think of your will as the king or queen before whom all of your life’s desires must appear. The king or queen (your will) makes the decisions as to whether you will or will not do something. So in your life your will is supreme and has the power to reject the pleadings of your Spirit if you choose.

God also gave you a “moral compass” which means that you already have knowledge of what is good from God’s perspective. Have you ever felt that small voice deep down inside of you that makes you feel guilty when you go against your “moral compass”?

Your soul is eternal. That old adage that you can’t take it with you doesn’t apply to your soul. This is the one thing that goes with you when you die, and remains after your body has been placed in your grave. Every human being that has ever lived has had a soul, and all of those souls are still in existence today somewhere. And that somewhere is either in heaven or in hell.

Your Spirit

God activates the body and soul by breathing into man the very essence of Himself.

⁷  then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.  Genesis 2:7 (NIV)

The spirit:

• Joins with the body to activate and electrify the inactive soul so that it begins to function.
• Provides you with the ability to comprehend and understand.
• Is the \’real you\’, the very core of your being, the essential seat of your existence.
• Is the intangible part of man that pulls all of the elements of the soul together enabling you to  think, feel, love, design, create, and enjoy music, humor, and art.
• Provides us with “free will.”

In Proverbs 20:27 we find that “The human spirit is the lamp of the Lord that sheds light on one’s inmost being.”

You Are God’s Special Creation

God is perfect, so He created Adam and Eve in His own image — perfect and without sin. God loved Adam and Eve and He would meet with them in the Garden of Eden to walk and talk with them. I am sure that Adam and Eve enjoyed and looked forward to this fellowship with their creator, their Lord, and their God. 

God wants to do that with each and every one of us. It is His heart’s desire to join you wherever you are to talk and have fellowship with you.  

What happened then, you’re asking? If man and woman were created perfect and without sin, why am I not perfect and without sin?  In our next installment of “Who Am I Really?” we’ll take a look at what happened as we are introduced to the next character of the Bible, Satan

Let me close by beginning to answer the question of who you are. After God created Adam and Eve, He was not finished with His involvement in the creation of the rest of the human race. He was, is, and will be involved with the creation of each and every one of us until the end of time.

God made you different from anyone else in the universe. He made you who you are for a specific purpose, His purpose. You are His special creation and He loves you and has great plans for you.

David describes in the book of Psalms that God created your innermost parts. He wove you together in your mother’s womb, and that nothing was hidden from Him. He saw you when you were still a small embryo and He began His work of knitting you together from the start. He knew you from top to bottom even before your mother knew you were inside of her.

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.
Psalm 139:13-18 (NIV)

In Matthew 10:30 we see that God even knows the exact number of hairs on your head. I apologize to the men who no longer have hair for even mentioning this.  Let’s just say He did know how many hairs you had on your head.

God Knows Who You Are and Who You Are Going To Be

Not only was God involved in making you who you are, but in verse 16, God has already written down everything you are going to do in your life time. He already has a list of your victories and defeats.

One of God’s greatest characteristics is that He is all-knowing (omniscient), so of course He already knows who you are and who you are going to be.  There is nothing that you will do in your life time that God doesn’t already know about and has already written down in His book. We often think that when we do something wrong or harmful to someone else and no one is around to see us, we are in the clear. However, we see that’s not true, because God knew you were going to do it before you did.

Do you really understand how much God loves you?  Look at verse 17; He loves you so much that He thinks about you all of the time. In fact, if you tried to count the number of times God thought about you they would outnumber all of the grains of sand on the earth.

So you can see you are indeed very special to God.  If God pays that much attention to making each of us, it is only common sense that He has a very special purpose for you and me on this earth.

What happened then, you’re asking? If man and woman were created perfect and without sin, why am I not perfect and without sin?  In our next installment of “Who Am I Really?” we’ll take a look at what happened as we are introduced to the next character of the Bible, Satan.  Let’s find out what that is together.

Until next time, my friend, may Mercy, Peace and Love be multiplied to you.

Enter the Devil/Satan

Welcome back, my dear friends. We learned in the last lesson that God not only created you, but He dearly loves you. He has already planned your whole life and He is constantly thinking about you.

We begin the second part of your journey to discover who you are by complicating things. God had just created man and woman, and placed them in the most beautiful garden in the entire world. Now, not wasting any time, the next character of the Bible makes his appearance. He is the ruler of darkness, the ruler of this world, the prince of the power of the air, the author of sin, our accuser before God, our tempter, our deceiver, and the father of all lies. He is Satan.

In this lesson we will do a case study on Satan’s journey to becoming the vilest individual in the history of the Bible and mankind. Actually, the name “Satan” means “adversary” or “one who opposes.” He is also known as “the devil”, which means “slanderer.”

This lesson is extremely important as we spend time looking at the character of Satan and how he evolved from perfection to rebellion. This study will begin to give you some of the necessary pieces of the puzzle about who you are. Satan is the one individual who has had the second greatest impact on your life after God. What did he do for you? He literally ruined your life and who you were truly meant to be. He also successfully separated you from God, your Father and creator.

Satan was one of the most powerful and beautiful angels in Heaven. In Ezekiel 28:12 we find a description of him, “You were the signet (stamp) of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.”  We will examine what happened to him, how he turned from saint to sinner, and why he became involved in the greatest war ever waged in the history of mankind.

Was Satan Always a Bad Buy

Remember that God created everything in Heaven and Earth, including the angels. I’ve reversed Hebrews 2:7 to read “where God made His angels a little higher than man and woman.”

Angels were given a body, soul, and spirit, just like you and me. Although their bodies were made differently than ours, their soul and spirit were the same. God gave them their mind, their emotions, and a free will just like you and me. In Lesson 1, we saw that our free will (volition) gives us the ability to say yes or no, even to God. Free will proved to be a problem for Satan.

Satan and his angelic followers chose by their own free will to rebel against the authority of God, and from that point on their entire existence and purpose in life was and still is open warfare against God and all that He stands for.

Who was Satan before he tried to overthrow Heaven?  Satan was created by God as a guardian cherub (angel), and was assigned to guard the holy mount of God — a place just beneath God’s throne.

In the book of Ezekiel, we find a description of a perfect, wise, and beautiful guardian cherub, apparently the highest of the angels created by God.

¹² You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. ¹³ You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: carnelian, chrysolite and emerald, topaz, onyx and jasper, lapis lazuli, turquoise and beryl. Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared. ¹⁴ You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. ¹⁵ You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you. Ezekiel 28:12-17 (NIV)

Pride Goes Before Satan’s Fall – The Birth of Sin

Somewhere along the way Satan became totally infatuated with his beauty and his power in Heaven.  I can just imagine him constantly complaining to God about his fellow angels. Saying something like, “You know ‘so and so’, he is worthless. I always have to fix his mistakes and work late when he calls off. Frankly, I can’t take it anymore. Can’t you do something with that slacker?”  His heart and soul became so puffed up and full of himself that the worst emotion ever known to man was born —pride.

Satan had to make up a rational explanation for why he was feeling so prideful. Without the necessary facts, his mind justified his emotions and told him that he no longer needed to worship or obey God — in fact he deserved to be God for all that he had done in Heaven. His mind said to him, “God never appreciates anything you do around here anyway. If it wasn’t for you, this place would go straight to hell.”

His will (which is free like yours and mine) finally kicked in following his mind’s decision and his emotion of pride. His will told him that it was tiring to work day and night to be obedient to God, and pushed him to decide to be disobedient, rebel against His authority, and destroy any of His plans. Once the three elements of his soul (mind, emotions, and will) joined together, sin was born.

God clearly created our mind, emotions and will to work in the sequence described by Ray C. Stedman in Lesson 1:

• Gather the necessary information
• Analyze and process it
• Weigh the pros and cons
• Make a rational decision

Once you’ve made a decision, your emotions get excited about the prospect of your decision, and then your will begins to implement the decision, driving you to achieve your desire.

Satan didn’t follow this process because if he had rationally thought about it and weighed the pros and cons, he would have quickly realized  that he had no chance of defeating God (who created him).

Satan’s first step was to follow his emotion of pride and then he forced his mind to rationalize that feeling and come up with a good reason to justify it. His new Satanic will then followed, and his obedience to God became open rebellion.  So what came next?

We find the fall of Satan in the book of Isaiah.  Notice how many “I will” statements exist in these two verses:

¹³ For you have said in your heart:
   I will ascend into heaven,
   I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
   I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north;
¹⁴ I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
   I will be like the Most High.
Isaiah 14:13-14 (NKJV)

Because of Satan’s sin of pride, God removed him from his position of great dignity and honor and barred Satan from heaven. The Bible does not tell us exactly when Satan’s fall occurred. However, it had to occur sometime between the creation of the angels and his entrance into the Garden of Eden.

In the book of Revelation, chapter 12, verses 7-9 we find the description of the final battle for Heaven. Satan’s time is short and judgment time is at hand and he knows it. God finally had enough of Satan and his evil demonic minions.

⁷ Then there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and his angels.
 ⁸ And the dragon lost the battle, and he and his angels were forced out of heaven.
 ⁹ This great dragon—the ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world—was thrown down to the earth with all his angels.
Revelation 12:7-9 (NLT)

This last ditch effort of Satan reminds me of General Robert E. Lee in charge of the southern armies of the Confederacy.  When he realized that the South was going to lose the war to the North, Lee decided to throw a Hail Mary pass and attack the North directly with his army at Gettysburg. His hope was to catch the North by surprise and turn the tide of battle in his favor. Satan tried the same thing. However, Satan had forgotten that God knows everything (Omniscient) even before it happens. So there was no surprise.

Satan’s Access to God

A fair question at this point would be: If Satan was thrown out of Heaven, how can he be our accuser before God when he is no longer there? But, we find in the book of Job, the first chapter, verses 6-12, that Satan still has limited access to God and will until the end of this age.

⁶ One day the angels came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them.
⁷ The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the LORD, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”
⁸ Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”
⁹ “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied.
¹⁰ “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land.
¹¹ But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
¹² The LORD said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.” Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.
Job 1: 6-12 (NIV)

Although Satan does not have open access to God, he is permitted into Heaven when he is summoned by God. His visits are brief, to the point, and focused on his persistent false accusations against the believers on earth.

For me, the use of a comparison chart always works best when I’m trying to understand the differences between two opposing factors. So let’s look at a list of God’s attributes and their scripture references,

compared with Satan’s attributes and their scripture references.

This chart will become important as I will make reference to it throughout the “Who Am I Really?” series. You may want to print it out and place it somewhere in order to remind yourself daily exactly who God is and who Satan is.

Satan is Real

• There exist two kingdoms on earth: the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Satan. 

The Kingdom of God

• Faith
• Holiness
• Love
• Truth
• Compassion
• Grace

The Kingdom of Satan

• Flesh
• Temptation
• Deceit
• Lies
• Accusations
• Rebellion

I have spent this entire lesson on helping you to develop an understanding of Satan and the kingdom he has created on earth along with his demonic minions.  Without understanding this key piece of information you will never fully understand who you really are.  Just like God, Satan is real. He is not some whimsical fairy tale or character in a movie made to scare young children.  Although he would love you to believe that so he can fly under the radar and do his damage. Satan is real!

Understand that Satan and his demonic minions are sworn enemies of God, who trap us and keep us from understanding who we really are.  They battle day and night to destroy our faith and trust in God by any means possible.  Look at what the apostle Paul has to say about this ongoing battle.

Our fight is not against people on earth. We are fighting against the rulers and authorities and the powers of this world’s darkness. We are fighting against the spiritual powers of evil in the heavenly places.  Ephesians 6:12 (ERV)

Refer to Life’s How to Book – the Bible – Every Day

In the book of Acts, the apostle Paul commended the Berean Jews for what he called a noble character.  What did they do?  They would listen to what Paul had to say about Jesus Christ with great eagerness, hanging on every word he said.  But, when they went home, they examined the scriptures to make sure that what Paul was saying was true.

Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.  Acts 17:11 (NIV)

My friends, if ever you are to learn who you really are and answer all of the other questions you have, you need to follow the example of the Berean Jews and search the scriptures daily, double- checking things for yourself in your Bible.

This is your first assignment to search the scriptures in the chart for the Truth of God. For some this may be the first time you’ve used a Bible. Many will find it difficult to understand, but that’s OK.

You will learn as the series continues that it is not really your fault that you may not understand everything. In fact the scriptures will show that it is the goal of Satan and his demonic minions to confuse your mind so that you will not understand and ultimately give up in frustration, putting aside God’s word. So I encourage you to stay with it, no matter how confused you become, and don’t give in to Satan’s will.

Get into the habit of using your Bible if you want to know more about God and who you really are. Remember, the Bible is the only instruction book on life that God wrote.

Our next lesson will focus on the Fall of Mankind, the biggest and sadist crime ever committed against all of humanity. The Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Satan collide with tremendous consequences.  Not only do Adam and Eve become the unsuspecting victims of this crime, but also for each and every one of us.

Until next time, my friend, may Mercy, Peace, and Love be multiplied to you. 

Welcome back, my friends. 

You are cordially invited to attend the wedding of Adam and the woman*. The wedding and reception will be held in the Garden of Eden at the beginning of time. We hope you’ll join us as we celebrate this joyous occasion.

A Couple Literally Made for Each Other

²¹ And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place.
²² Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.
²³ And Adam said:
“This is now bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.”
²⁴ Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
²⁵ And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
Genesis 2:21-25 (NRSV)

I like the way the ERV version of the Bible describes Adam’s reaction to the woman in verse 23: 

“Finally! One like me, with bones from my bones and a body from my body. She was taken out of a man, so I will call her ‘woman’.”

I am sure that Adam was completely beside himself when God presented woman to him. Remember, in verse 20, Adam had just finished naming every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens, however there was no helper found fit for him.

After Adam got over the shock of seeing literally the most beautiful woman on earth, what did he say?  Did he say to God, “Thank you, Lord, for this woman. We will live together for a while until we get to know one other and make sure we are right for each other. Maybe we’ll even buy a house together and then we’ll think about getting married”?  

No! He said to the woman: Will you marry me? In Genesis 2:24 we find a verse that is repeated during thousands of weddings
every year. “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.” (NRSV)

The first wedding and married couple on earth, and I’m sure God performed the ceremony. Do you imagine that Adam was dressed in his best tux and the woman was wearing a gown made by the angels? That wasn’t the case, as we learn in verse 25 — “And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.”

Why weren’t they ashamed as they walked naked through the garden? Their focus was on God, their creator, and not themselves. Adam and the woman were created perfectly and without sin so they didn’t experience shame like you and me. Unfortunately, that mindset would prove to be short-lived.

*Adam did not name his wife Eve until chapter 3, verse 20.

Peace and Harmony….Only One Rule

Adam and the woman’s job was to take care of the most beautiful garden ever planted, God’s garden. A garden that was filled with beautiful trees, bushes, and flowers, and probably babbling brooks as well. I believe that it was only appropriate that God created woman in the most beautiful place on earth.

Right in the middle of this garden were the two most beautiful trees ever planted — The Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I’m sure nothing compared to those two trees.

God would join Adam and the woman in the cool of the day, walking and having fellowship with them. They wanted for nothing because God provided them with everything. There was only one simple command God gave to Adam, and we find that in Genesis chapter 2, verses 16-17:

“¹⁶ And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” (NRSV)

It was as simple as that, no other rules to obey. Do not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. But what happens to you when you’re told you can’t have something? If you’re like me, and most everyone else, that’s the one thing you want the most. And Satan, knowing this, goes into temptation mode against us. Recall the old saying, “where good exists, evil can’t be far behind.”

So Adam and the woman lived in complete peace and harmony in God’s Kingdom here on earth. Little did they know that another Kingdom was already established on Earth and that they would become the victims of the greatest crime committed against all of mankind.

A Real Lady-killer

In the middle of the Garden of Eden, Satan was lurking around the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  The Bible says that “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made.” Genesis 3:1 (NIV)

Now I’m sure many of you have seen images of a snake slithering down the limb of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil to meet with the woman. But, remember in our last lesson we read a description of Satan in the garden.

¹³ You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: carnelian, chrysolite and emerald, topaz, onyx and jasper, lapis lazuli, turquoise and beryl. Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared.
Ezekiel 28:13 (NIV)

As the woman walked past the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Satan was waiting for her. Can you imagine what she thought when “the shining one” approached her? She was looking at the most beautiful angel God had created with clothing covered in jewels and gold. She had never seen anything like him.

So begins Satan’s greatest challenge of his life — to create his first sinner. Why was this a difficult challenge? Because, up until this point, the woman is still perfect and without sin, and she has not experienced the emotions (those that created his fall) that Satan needs to arouse in her.

Satan knows that once he gets her to sin, he will move inside of her, having continual access to her, so that she will never be out of reach of his temptations again. That is why we can never out-run sin. Satan has a firm hold on our soul and can access us continually.

A Master Class in Sin Manipulation

Watch and learn how Satan uses what will become his signature approach on the woman as we study Genesis 3:1-7 (NIV).

Satan uses the same approach on everyone, and it works every time. The old standard, “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it”, applies here.

Step #1: Satan shows her a temptation or desire he knows is of interest to her, and it begins to arouse new emotions of desire inside of her.

Satan could have approached her anywhere in the Garden of Eden, but he didn’t. He stood right beside the very temptation he knew would be of interest to her — the one thing in the entire Garden that God had forbidden her to eat from, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  So he casually begins by asking an innocent question.

“He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

Satan begins to confuse the woman by misquoting scripture. 

“Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden?” instead of “¹⁶ And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” (Genesis 2:16-17)

Remember, Satan was one of the most important angels in Heaven, so he certainly knew the scriptures.  Being the deceiver that he is, he will always misquote scripture to his favor in order to confuse and deceive us.

² The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 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.’”

She knew very well what God had said to Adam, and she even adds emphasis by adding the words to the scripture, “we’re not even to touch it.”

Step #2:  Satan plants a seed of doubt and confusion in her mind concerning the trustworthiness of God as it relates to the temptation.

I can just imagine his reply to the woman. “Really is that what He said.  I can’t believe you fell for that lie. The only reason He told you and Adam that was so He could keep the fruit of the tree for Himself and not share it with you. God knows that you won’t die if you eat from that tree. What He didn’t tell you was that if you eat from that tree, your eyes will be opened and you’ll be just like God, knowing everything He knows concerning good from evil. You just can’t trust Him, he’ll tell you one thing and then He will do something else.” (Has Satan ever whispered that in your ear?)

⁴“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. ⁵“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

In lesson 1 we learned that God gave us our mind, emotions, and free will.  And it was God’s intent that we use them in that order. First the mind processes information and makes a decision, then our emotions kick in and we get excited about our decision, then our free will kicks in to achieve our decision.  We saw in lesson 2 that Satan didn’t use this process and started with his emotions, then his mind and finally his will. We saw what finally happened to him using this process, so he uses this approach on the woman, to engage her emotions before her mind has a chance to reason.

Let’s look how the woman handled what Satan said to her. Did she use God’s process and think about what Satan was saying, and realize that it didn’t match up with what she knew about God? He had been loving, kind, giving, and had never lied to them. If she would have followed God’s process at that point she would have known that Satan was lying to her and she would have walked away from him. But, she didn’t do that.

Step #3: Once Satan has succeeded in getting the woman to doubt God’s intentions, he just sits back as the temptation begins to grow, her mind justifying it, and then finally her free will begins to lust after it.

She remembers God’s command that this is the one thing (The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil) you can’t have. She thinks: “Did God really tell us the truth about why we were not to eat from it? The tree looks innocent enough.  I don’t see anything on it that would kill me, but the fruit looks absolutely delicious.”  The woman’s emotions are now aroused and take over her mind, her free will caves in, and she can no longer help herself.

Step #4: Just like a pregnancy, once the process has come to full term it gives birth to sin, and the woman becomes helpless to stop herself.

Her mouth waters at the sight of the fruit. She can only imagine taking a bite of the fruit and it being the most wonderful thing she has ever eaten. And finally she remembers the part of the lie Satan told her that she would be like God after eating it. Satan springs his trap and the first victim of sin on earth is recorded.

⁶ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.

Step #5: The last step is death — total and complete separation from God.

The woman’s soul has been changed and now belongs to Satan, in essence she has died in the eyes of God. She becomes the first person on earth to be totally separated from God for all eternity.

We find the description of this cycle in James 1:14-15. (NASB)

¹⁴But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. ¹⁵Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.

What is meant by you will certainly die. The clock of death has now begun to start for Adam and Eve and the rest of us. We will not live forever any longer with God on this earth

The battle over sin had been lost, but not the war, for Adam hadn’t eaten the fruit yet. The woman then turns to her husband and probably says: “Oh Adam, this is wonderful. I have never tasted anything like this, you have to try it.”  Adam rather than say no, because he knew what God had said, listened to the woman and he took a bite (this will come back to bite him in Lesson 5). Satan’s job has been completed and sin enters the world and the downfall of Humanity is complete. There is now an immediate separation between God and man.  I can visualize Satan standing in the background jumping up and down and shouting, “I win, I win!”

Fear and Guilt in the Garden

What’s the first thing that happened to Adam and the woman after they ate from the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?  Self-awareness was born and they immediately became aware of themselves and the condition they were in.
She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

⁷Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.” Genesis 3:7 (NIV)

Before their fall into sin Adam and the woman were focused entirely on serving God, taking care of the garden and animals, not themselves, so clothing was not important to them. But now, focusing on themselves and not God, they are self-conscious and suddenly realize that they are naked and quickly cover themselves.

The next emotions they experienced were fear and guilt.

⁸Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. ⁹But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?” 10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”  Genesis 3:8-10 (NIV)

In verse 11, God, knowing what has already occurred, asks an unnecessary question.

¹¹And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

In verses 12 and 13, Adam and the woman immediately made excuses and lying becomes part of their new satanic emotions. They blamed each other, and the blame game was invented. Adam even tried to blame the whole thing on God.

¹²The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” ¹³Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

No Longer Perfect – Our Legacy of Sin

Adam’s and the woman’s souls have now been stamped with Satan’s DNA for all time.  Just like Satan, they are no longer perfect and sinless in the sight of God. As a consequence, they brought upon themselves and the whole human race the penalty for sin, which is spiritual and physical separation from God. Since Adam and Eve’s fall, every person is born with a sinful nature and becomes a sinner in thought, word, and deed. In Romans, chapter 3, verse 23, God’s Word tells us  

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (NIV)

God is disappointed because sin has now separated His great creation from Him and the everlasting love which He has for them. But, God will not be deterred by the vile crime Satan has just committed. God immediately begins to execute His eternal plan, which involves the redemption of man from the curse of sin and death.

In our next lesson we will look at the consequences of Adam and Eve’s sin and what it has done to each of us.  We will take a simple, common sense look at what the depravity of man and woman really means. You will finally complete the borders of your life’s puzzle, and begin to make sense of the pieces that are left.

Until next time, my friend, may Mercy, Peace, and Love be multiplied to you.

Sin is Part of All of Us

In Chapter 1 (Your Life Begins), we saw that your soul is made up of three parts —your mind, emotions, and will. In the last chapter, we witnessed the fall of mankind into sin in the Garden of Eden. Satan’s DNA has now become part of each one of our souls, and the very essence of who you are and what you do now belongs to Satan.

For some of you, what you are about to read next will be difficult to believe, and it certainly wasn’t easy for me to write. As I begin to describe what God’s Word says about who we truly have become, you will probably think of individuals in your life — your grandparents, a family member, your pastor, priest, or Sunday school teacher — and be certain that what I am discussing doesn’t apply to them, or even to yourself.

In Romans, chapter 3, verse 23, God’s Word tells us “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (NIV) The word “all” means just that, my friend, no exceptions. We are all in the same boat.

I read somewhere a good explanation of how every person is born with a sinful nature and becomes a sinner in thought, word, and deed. “What parent has to teach his or her child to be selfish, to covet what someone else has or to lie? Those actions come naturally from the child’s sinful nature. Instead, the parent must devote much time to teaching the child the importance of telling the truth, of sharing instead of being selfish, of obeying instead of rebelling, etc.”

As a parent and grandparent, I had never really thought about my children and grandchildren being born with a sinful nature. That explained a lot to me, and I finally found peace knowing that it wasn’t just my family that acted that way.

The Bible refers to the depravity of man, the satanic infestation, as the Flesh or the Old Man.

In 1 John 2:16 God’s Word says:

“¹⁶For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father [God] but is of the world [Satan].” (NKJV)

Now let’s overlay the verses we read in the last chapter in the book of James, chapter 1:14-15.

“¹⁴But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. ¹⁵Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.” (NASB)

Our Moral Compass Knows Right from Wrong

If you remember, when God created us, He gave us a “moral compass” which means that we already have knowledge of what is right and wrong from God’s perspective. Have you ever felt that small voice deep down inside of you that makes you feel guilty when you go against your “moral compass”?

In the second chapter of the book of Romans, Paul talks about God’s righteous judgment. He is talking about both Jews and Gentiles being judged. In verses 14 and 15, he basically says that even though the Gentiles do not have the law (the Ten Commandments) to live by like the Jews, they still know right from wrong because it is written on their hearts (your moral compass). The scripture says:

“¹⁴When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves.  ¹⁵They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them.”  Romans 2:14-15 (NRSV)

I want you to read it again in the Easy-to-Read Version (ERV):

 “¹⁴Those who are not Jews don’t have the law. But when they naturally do what the law commands without even knowing the law, then they are their own law. This is true even though they don’t have the written law. ¹⁵They show that in their hearts they know what is right and wrong, the same as the law commands, and their consciences agree. Sometimes their thoughts tell them that they have done wrong, and this makes them guilty. And sometimes their thoughts tell them that they have done right, and this makes them not guilty.” Romans 2:14-15 (ERV)

So you see that even though we are all sinners in the eyes of God and separated from Him because of Adam and Eve’s sin, we still have the capacity to be kind and good because of our moral compass. We are basically being nice sinners once in a while, some more than most. However, as we will learn, this does not redeem us in the sight of God. Remember, as humans we can only judge each other by what we see on the outside. God judges by what is on the inside.

Satan Directs Our Moral Compass to Stray from God’s Word

It is important for you to understand that what I believe and what scripture supports is that Satan uses your moral compass and sinful nature to keep you blinded to the truth of God’s Word. For some, this will be an awakening moment as you understand the difference between being a good person and your total depravity and separation from God, your Father.

A key piece to the puzzle of who you are is how Satan has destroyed your life and why you are separated from your loving Father because of his fall from Heaven and successful temptation of Adam and Eve, replacing your original soul with his. Where does the evil and temptation in this world come from? And why do you act and think the way you do?  Common sense should tell you that the answer is Satan.

Friends, I’m going to list below scriptures from God’s Word for you to read and reflect upon. I am not saying that you do everything that is listed because Satan already knows which ones to tempt you with, correct? We each have our own personal preferred sin file that he pulls from to use against you.

“¹⁹When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, ²⁰idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, ²¹envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.” Galatians 5:19-21 (NLT)

“¹⁸But the words you speak come from the heart—that’s what defiles you. ¹⁹For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander.” Matthew 15:18-19 (NLT)

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9 (NLT)

“⁵So also the tongue is a small thing, but what enormous damage it can do. A great forest can be set on fire by one tiny spark. ⁶And the tongue is a flame of fire. It is full of wickedness, and poisons every part of the body. And the tongue is set on fire by hell itself and can turn our whole lives into a blazing flame of destruction and disaster.” James 3:5-6 (TLB)

Finally, take a look at 2 Timothy 3:2-4 and see if you think it describes the world we live in today.

“²People will love themselves and money. They will have pride and tell of all the things they have done. They will speak against God. Children and young people will not obey their parents. People will not be thankful and they will not be holy. ³They will not love each other. No one can get along with them. They will tell lies about others. They will not be able to keep from doing things they know they should not do. They will be wild and want to beat and hurt those who are good. ⁴They will not stay true to their friends. They will act without thinking. They will think too much of themselves. They will love fun instead of loving God.” (NLT)

Do any of these traits sound familiar to you? Could you make a list of individuals who fall into one or most of the categories mentioned above?  How about your own list?  What is important to understand is that we all have these fleshly traits inside of us because of Satan.  And God cannot tolerate sin, so that is why we are separated from God.

Satan and his demonic minions use deception to keep us from the redemptive truth of God’s Word, which we will discuss in the next chapter. Each of us knows right from wrong for the scriptures say it is written on our heart, but Satan works day and night to keep you from understanding the Word of God.

Look at what 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 says:

“³If the Good News we preach is hidden, it is hidden to those who are lost in sin. ⁴The eyes of those who do not believe are made blind by Satan who is the god of this world. He does not want the light of the Good News to shine in their hearts. This Good News shines as the shining-greatness of Christ. Christ is as God is.”  (NLV)

Satan and His Minions Construct an Even Greater Deception

If Satan and his demonic minions, sworn enemies of God, work diligently to blind us to the truth of God’s Word, why wouldn’t they build on that by creating another way to God —a way that excludes the redemption with God through His Son, Jesus Christ, and that is based on following rituals and doing good works as a way to get to Heaven?

Now let’s take your knowledge of right and wrong (your moral compass), combine it with your pride and selfishness (your old nature, the flesh) and take an imaginary trip to a meeting of Satan and his demonic minions. Take a deep breath and use your imagination as you read these next paragraphs.

You are now in the war room of Satan and his demonic minions. They are planning their revenge and how to attack God.

Satan: We need a better way to confuse the people of earth so that God cannot redeem them to Himself through His Son, Jesus Christ.  These people and their souls belong to me, and I’m not going to give them up without a fight. I’ve copied everything God has done so far and twisted it for my own use so that non-believers cannot see the truth of God’s Word. But we’re still losing the battle.

One of his minions: What if you start your own gospel of salvation, one that runs parallel to God’s true plan for salvation?

Satan: What do you mean?

One of his minions: Well you’ve successfully corrupted their souls through sin, so why not build on it?

Satan: Go on.

One of his minions: We know what drives these people; they are no different than we are. Let’s play to their pride and selfishness. You’ve become the master of temptation — use it against their belief in God.

Satan: You’re losing me.

One of his minions: What if you provided them a gospel of salvation that played on their moral compass and their sinful nature?  It would be a gospel that allows them to take pride in achieving their way to Heaven through their ability to work for it. Then they can boast to their friends and family about what they’ve done. It would be an alternative to God’s gospel of salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Satan: What would you call this gospel, and how would we get this message to the lost?

One of his minions: The Gospel of Good Works is your way to Heaven, but leave out the part that true redemption only comes through grace and the belief in Jesus Christ as your personal savior.

Another demonic minion: Next we establish different kinds of cults for people to follow— ones that suit their individual sinful desires. Then we establish different religions that preach the way to God is by keeping religious rituals and by your own good deeds —things they can do and keep track of, things that make them feel good about themselves. We’ll teach and promote the harder you work at being a good person, the easier it will be to get into heaven. But, from the pulpit and from their religious leaders they will never hear the truth that God’s gospel of salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ as the only way to Heaven.

Satan: I like it! This will keep them busy and away from the truth of God’s Word. Let’s put everything we have into establishing these cults and religions. This should really put a kink into God’s plans.

Does this sound weird or a little farfetched? Take a look at 2 Timothy 4:3-4:

“³The time will come when people will not listen to the truth. They will look for teachers who will tell them only what they want to hear. ⁴They will not listen to the truth. Instead, they will listen to stories made up by men.”  (NLV)

Now read Colossians 2:20-23:

“²⁰Since you died, as it were, with Christ and this has set you free from following the world’s ideas of how to be saved—by doing good and obeying various rules—why do you keep right on following them anyway, still bound by such rules as ²¹not eating, tasting, or even touching certain foods? ²²Such rules are mere human teachings, for food was made to be eaten and used up. ²³These rules may seem good, for rules of this kind require strong devotion and are humiliating and hard on the body, but they have no effect when it comes to conquering a person’s evil thoughts and desires. They only make him proud.”  (TLB)

Friends, do not sell Satan short and ignore what is going on around you and inside of you. But, God’s Word assures us that Satan and his demonic minions will lose in the end.

In our next chapter you will learn how to turn the life I’ve just described around 180 degrees. Join me as we turn your defeat into glorious victory.

Until next time, my friend, may Mercy, Peace, and Love be multiplied to you.

The Announcement of Our Savior

Welcome back, friend. I hope after reading the last lesson, you have started to think about who you are, and that you can now make more sense out of some of the dark puzzle pieces that fit together to make you. Like you, I too, am a sinner, and have the same dark qualities as you. When I study and prepare to write my lessons, I feel the same way you do when you read them.

Before we move on, let’s go back and see what happened to Satan in the Garden of Eden. Satan had been forced out of Heaven for his prideful rebellion against God, and on Earth, he had separated God’s most cherished creations from Him through Adam and Eve’s fall into sin. God didn’t bother to ask Satan why he had done what he did. He had enough of Satan. In Genesis 3:14-15, God pronounces His judgment on Satan He has placed him under an eternal curse:

¹⁴So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, You are cursed more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you shall go, And you shall eat dust All the days of your life. (NKJV)

Satan was once the most beautiful and smartest angel in Heaven. A Cherub, he wore clothing covered in jewels and trimmed in gold, and guarded the very throne of God. But now, in front of all, Satan is forced to eat humble pie. God humiliates him in his own earthly kingdom by making him lower than any other human being or animal on earth.

And then the final blow is dealt when Satan is told that his goal of separating man from God, our Father, will fail. God shares His eternal plan, which involves the redemption of men and women from the curse of sin and death. He is the first to announce the birth of our Redeemer and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

¹⁵And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.

God has already given us hope of a Redeemer, (Genesis 3:15) which is sometimes referred to as the protoevangelium, the first announcement of Jesus in Scripture

What does between your offspring and hers mean? Aren’t all children born by woman?  Yes, but all offspring of Satan are born by man’s seed because of the sin of Adam.  There is only one person — Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior — who was not born by man’s seed, but by woman, a virgin, and the Holy Spirit. Jesus was born sinless because He was not conceived or corrupted by man’s seed.

Jesus vs Satan – Round 1

Let’s fast forward from the Garden of Eden about 4,000 years in the future, and meet a young man of 30, from Nazareth, as he walks down the hill in Bethany towards the Jordan River. He sees a large group of people who are being baptized by a scruffy- looking man, John the Baptist.

²⁸These things happened in Bethany across the Jordan River where John was baptizing. ²⁹On the next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! ³⁰This is the one about whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who is greater than I am, because he existed before me.’ ³¹I did not recognize him, but I came baptizing with water so that he could be revealed to Israel.” ³²Then John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending like a dove from heaven, and it remained on him. ³³And I did not recognize him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘The one on whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining—this is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ ³⁴I have both seen and testified that this man is the Chosen One of God.”  John 1:28-34 (NET)

Thus begins the ministry of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that will change the entire world for eternity. Satan had free reign up until now, but his worst nightmare has just arrived, as God foretold back in the Garden of Eden over 4,000 years ago.

After Jesus was baptized and full of the Holy Spirit, He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to confront Satan. Satan had to realize that this was his best shot at getting Jesus to sin and break the chain of events (God revealed throughout the Bible) predicting his final doom. So I’m sure Satan was ready to pull out all the stops and give it that good, old college try. Pride can make us do stupid things sometimes.

For forty days, Jesus endured temptations from the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they were completed, he was famished. Remember Jesus is true God and true man. So the human side of Him had to be tired, hungry, and even weak — just where Satan wanted Him. When our ability to resist is at its lowest point, Satan will always present us with a temptation that plays on our emotions — a promise of instant gratification and escape from the trouble we are experiencing.
Three times Satan tries to get Jesus to sin (body, soul and spirit) against God, and three times he fails.

¹¹Then the devil left him, and angels came and began ministering to his needs. Matthew 4:11 (NET)

However, Satan knows that if Jesus succeeds in God’s plan, his reign as the god of this world is over. Why did God send His Son, Jesus Christ, to this earth?

¹⁶For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. ¹⁷For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him. John 3:16-17 (NKJV)

Simply put, Jesus came to destroy the power of sin that separates us from our Father and to restore our fellowship with Him. So Satan slinks away, and will bide his time, looking to strike again later.

¹³So when the devil had completed every temptation, he departed from him until a more opportune time. Luke 4:13 (NET)

So you see, friends, during His earthly ministry, Jesus was constantly tempted by Satan. So when you cry out to God that you are going through something that no one else has experienced, you are not correct because Jesus went through the very same thing.

¹⁴Therefore since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. ¹⁵For we do not have a high priest incapable of sympathizing with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way just as we are, yet without sin. Hebrews 4:14-15 (NET)

I’m going to stop here and move on, because how Jesus handles Satan’s temptation is a wonderful series unto itself, and I will write about that in a future study called “Handling Temptations the Jesus Way.”

First Round goes to Jesus!

The True Identity of Jesus

Let’s correct a misconception, perpetuated by Satan, that Jesus was a great spiritual man, a prophet sent by God, and nothing more. Friends, this is a lie taught by those through cults and religions who preach Satan’s gospel of good works as the way to get to Heaven.

It is important that you understand the deity (his true identity) of Jesus Christ. Satan is constantly attacking this very truth in the world we live in order to keep you away from the redemptive power of believing in Jesus.

God has revealed Himself to us in three distinct Persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — the Holy Trinity as it is referred to. Each Person plays a distinct role in our redemption with God. If I were able to explain to you how God can be three distinct persons, I would be in Heaven right now, because that is the only place the Bible says I will fully understand everything.  I just believe it, why, because the Bible tells me so.

I would encourage you to stop now and read the book of John, chapter 14. You will learn how, at the Last Supper, Jesus prepared His disciples for His coming death on the cross. He told them to believe that He is in the Father and that the Father is in Him.

The disciples begin to realize their Rabbi and Lord for the past three years is about to leave them to fulfill His true purpose on this earth. They struggle with what Jesus is telling them and become afraid.  What will happen to them once He is gone?  Will the Jews turn on them next?

In John 14:18 Jesus gives them this assurance.

¹⁸“I will not abandon you as orphans, I will come to you.”

But, if Jesus is going to die and ascend up to Heaven to be with the Father, what does He mean “I will come to you”?  Jesus introduced the third person of the Trinity — the Holy Spirit. Here is what Jesus explained to His disciples:

¹⁵“If you love me, you will do what I command. 16 I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper to be with you forever. ¹⁷The Helper is the Spirit of truth [who or what is the truth. The people of the world cannot accept him, because they don’t see him or know him. But you know him. He lives with you, and he will be in you. ¹⁸“I will not leave you all alone like orphans. I will come back to you. John 14:15-18 (ERV) 

So when someone tells you that Jesus is not God, simply ask them to explain the 14th chapter of John.

Continued in Part II of Your Life Redeemed

The Ministry of Jesus

Some people may think that Jesus’ earthly ministry, ordained by God, was a failure.  What did He really accomplish?  He succeeded in alienating the very people he came to save, the Jews, who then crucified him.

For centuries the Jews had been promised by their prophets that their Messiah would soon come. I’m sure they waited with much anticipation for the arrival of a great King  who would destroy the control of the Roman Empire and restore them to the days when King David ruled and they prospered  They would celebrate this royal birth, and the Kingdom of Israel would be re-established for the entire world to see, envy, and fear.

But instead, a young man from Nazareth, a carpenter’s son, followed by a group of 12 men, some just fisherman and others of questionable reputation, enters the picture.  I’m sure some said, “Really, this is the Messiah we were promised?”

But Jesus did not come to establish an earthly Kingdom to rule over them and restore them to greatness, instead he came to establish His Heavenly Kingdom for all eternity. The ministry of Jesus lasted just three years but with a definite purpose:

• To testify to the truth of God.
• To prepare a group of 12 men to go out and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world after His death and return to Heaven.
• To die for our sins on the cross so that we can be reconciled to God our Father, thus breaking Satan’s hold through sin.

 Let’s take a look at each purpose in more detail:

1. Testify to the truth of God:

Jesus’ response to Pilate as He stood before him a condemned man:

³⁷So Pilate asked him, “Are you a king, then?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. I was born and came into the world for this one purpose, to speak about the truth. Whoever belongs to the truth listens to me.”  John 18:37 (GNT)

What is this truth Jesus was talking about?  We find the answer in John 14:5-6:

“⁵Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going; so how can we know the way to get there?”
⁶Jesus answered him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one goes to the Father except by me.”
So we find that the only way to God, our Father, is through believing the truth of Jesus Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection for our sins.

2. Prepare a group of 12 men to go out and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world after His death and return to Heaven.

For three years, these men followed Jesus. They witnessed Jesus heal the sick, make the lame walk, raise the dead, and feed 5,000 people with just five loafs of bread and two fishes. They listened to Him give the Sermon on the Mount and rebuke the religions’ leaders of the day, the Sadducees and the Pharisees. They watched as he threw out the money changers in the Temple. They watched Him walk on water. They shared His last meal with Him before His crucifixion. They watched as one of their own betrayed Him for 30 pieces of silver. They saw Him arrested, beaten, and crucified. They saw Him after His resurrection from the dead. They watched as He ascended into Heaven to sit at the right hand of God. And they were filled with His Holy Spirit so that they could carry on His ministry after He was gone. They witnessed everything.

Let’s listen to Jesus’ final instruction to His apostles just before He ascends up to Heaven to be with the Father.

⁴⁴Then he said, “When I was with you before, I told you that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms must be fulfilled.” ⁴⁵Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. ⁴⁶And he said, “Yes, it was written long ago that the Messiah would suffer and die and rise from the dead on the third day. ⁴⁷It was also written that this message would be proclaimed in the authority of his name to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem: ‘There is forgiveness of sins for all who repent.’⁴⁸You are witnesses of all these things.
⁴⁹“And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised. But stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven.” Luke 24:44-49

Many of you may have heard Jesus say it this way in Mark 16:15-16:

¹⁵And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. (NKJV)

It seems appropriate for Jesus to end His ministry on earth where He began it when he was baptized in Bethany.

⁵⁰And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them.51 While He was blessing them, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven. Luke 24:50-51 (NASB)

3. Die for our sins and reconcile us to God, thus breaking Satan’s hold. 

Paul best describes this in the book of Romans:

⁶For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷(For rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person perhaps someone might possibly dare to die.) ⁸But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ⁹Much more then, because we have now been declared righteous by his blood, we will be saved through him from God’s wrath. ¹⁰For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, since we have been reconciled, will we be saved by his life? ¹¹Not only this, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation. Romans 5:6-11 (NET)

Don’t get me wrong, my friends. Jesus’ ministry on earth was only a failure in the eyes of the Jews. They were looking for a short term earthly solution to their pain and suffering.  But Jesus was bringing an eternal Heavenly solution through His death, burial and resurrection that they didn’t understand, and when we don’t understand something what do we normally do?

It was important for Jesus to do what He did and to leave us an example of how God truly wants us to live our Christian life.  You can turn to any page in the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and find examples and practical answers to today’s problems.  Jesus’ ministry was truly amazing.  Who do you know who has had such a profound impact on the world since His death over 2,000 years ago?

It’s Time to Take Back What Satan Has Stolen From You

My friends, over these past five lessons I hope I have made some common sense of the greatest book ever written, the Bible.  Below I will briefly summarize the five lessons I’ve written, and present you with a decision that each and every one of us must make at some point in our life. I feel sorry for those that have gone before us and neglected to make this decision. The scriptures clearly tell us that they are in Hell, spending eternity separated from their creator, God, our Heavenly Father.

Remember, as you read this invitation, you have the free will to decide to accept it or reject it. Right now, as you are reading this, I can assure you that Satan and his demonic minions are at work beside and in you trying to keep you from reading further. The phone will start ringing, someone will call out to you, the baby just woke up, the dog is barking at something outside, or you just remembered that television show you’ve been waiting all week to watch is about to come on.

I ask you to read on and to focus on you and God, blocking out everything else.

1. God created you and filled you with wonderful things and abilities; He deeply loves you and wants to be with you.
2. Satan stepped in and placed a wall of separation (sin) between you and God, and now you are physically and spiritually separated from Him.
3. Jesus Christ came to earth to destroy once and for all that wall of separation, and to restore your broken relationship with God. He died for you and your sinful nature so that you could be redeemed with your Heavenly Father who is waiting for you.
4. The Holy Spirit of God is waiting to come and live inside of you. He will unlock God’s Word to you, and He will help you build your new life and see all of the wonderful things God has hidden inside of you — things you can’t see because of your sinful nature.

Friend, this is your moment. Don’t let Satan interfere because he doesn’t care at all about you, and neither does this world we live in. His only goal is to destroy everything God wants for you and to keep you in Hell along with all the others that walked away at this moment.

Prepare your heart by reading what God has written in Romans 10:9-13 and Ephesians 2:8-9

⁹If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved. ¹¹As the Scriptures tell us, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.” ¹²Jew and Gentile are the same in this respect. They have the same Lord, who gives generously to all who call on him. ¹³For “Everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved.” (NLT)

⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. (NKJV)

This is the first step of faith the Bible talks about — God’s gift to you, no strings attached. You can take it, accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, by just reading this simple prayer out loud from your heart, not your mind:

Dear God, I realize I am a sinner in need of salvation.  I know that all my own good works and religious rituals can never save me. Only Jesus can save me.  I believe that Jesus, my Savior, came to earth for me and that he died on the cross for my sins.  I believe that He was buried and on the third day rose and now sits at your right hand as my advocate. I am asking Jesus to forgive my sins and to come into my life now and be my Lord and Savior now and forever more. Thank you for accepting me and giving me eternal life.

If you prayed this prayer with your heart and believe that Jesus Christ is now your Lord and Savior except for your birth, this is the most exciting day of your life. You are now redeemed with God, your Father. You have now secured your place in eternity with Him. The Bible tells us that right now everyone in Heaven is rejoicing with you. Can you hear them?

Welcome, my brother or sister, to the Kingdom of God.

I have one more lesson in the Who Am I Really series, and it is written especially for you. I will share with you all of the wonderful promises the Word of God now holds for you. You can now finish the puzzle of Who Am I Really.  All of those colorful pieces that make you who you are will now fit together perfectly and you will see who God really intended you to be.

If you haven’t taken the step of faith above your lesson ends here.  The final lesson is only for the saved, those who have accepted God’s gift of salvation.

If you didn’t take the step of faith yet, I would ask you to start the series again from the beginning.  You need to decide why you would believe the lies of Satan and the world we live in rather than what the Bible says. Just like Satan and the rest of us, you have a free will to say yes or no to God. My prayer is that you won’t wait too long. Remember, you are only one short heartbeat away from eternity, and where you spend it is entirely up to you.

Until next time, my brothers and sisters, may Mercy, Peace, and Love be multiplied to you.

Your New Life Eternal

Welcome back, my brothers and sisters. For those of you who have accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, you’ve begun a wonderful new life in Christ, and this final lesson in the “Who Am I Really?” series is for you. While accepting Jesus may have been an exciting moment for some of you, others may not have experienced that same emotion. Regardless of how you felt at that moment, let me assure you that if you believed in your heart that your prayer for salvation was genuine, you were saved. Accepting God’s gift by His Grace is that simple.

Look at the wonderful promise of 2 Corinthians 5:17:

¹⁷This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! (NLT)

You learned in Lesson 1 that you are God’s very own special creation. He knitted you together in your mother’s womb with His own hands, and He wrote down His plan for your life before you were born. Then Satan came along, and through sin, stole the special creation that God had made. But by accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you have taken back the life that God planned for you. You have to start getting excited about that, friend!

The Holy Spirit now lives inside of you and will begin to work in your life, replacing your old sinful nature with your new spirit-filled nature.

²²But the fruit that the Spirit produces in a person’s life is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these kinds of things. Galatians 5:22-23 (ERV)

⁷The Spirit God gave us does not make us afraid. His Spirit is a source of power and love and self-control. 2 Timothy 1:7

Promises That Will Never Be Broken

There are more than 3,000 promises from God found in the Bible and these all belong to you. The promises God has given us are not broken into categories (yes, no or maybe), based on how you now act or what you say. They are all answered with a resounding YES in Christ.

²⁰The yes to all of God’s promises is in Christ. And that is why we say “Amen” through Christ to the glory of God. 2 Corinthians 1:20 (ERV)

Here are a few of my favorite promises:

Your salvation and eternity is guaranteed by God Himself.

³⁸And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. ³⁹No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39 (NLT)

²⁸I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them away from me, ²⁹for my Father has given them to me, and he is more powerful than anyone else. No one can snatch them from the Father’s hand. John 10:28-29 (NLT)

Your Heavenly Father will now provide for you from His own riches.

¹⁹My God will use his glorious riches to give you everything you need. He will do this through Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19 (ERV)

You now have access to your Father 24/7.

¹⁴We can come to God with no doubts. This means that when we ask God for things (and those things agree with what God wants for us), God cares about what we say. 15 He listens to us every time we ask him. So we know that he gives us whatever we ask from him.” 1 John 5:14-15 (ERV)

When you fall into temptation and sin (and you will, we all do), you have forgiveness.

⁹But if we confess our sins to him, he can be depended on to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong. And it is perfectly proper for God to do this for us because Christ died to wash away our sins. 1 John 1:9 (TLB)

Your First Steps as a New Christian

Since Lesson 1, you have been following God’s process. You’ve read the evidence, weighed the facts, and made a rational decision to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. What now?

1. Defend Against Satan. Know that Satan and his demonic minions are at work trying to steal your assurance of salvation. He is whispering in your ear right now that you aren’t truly saved, reminding you of bad things you’ve done, and making you question  why God would want someone like you in Heaven. Stand firm, have faith, and learn that you no longer have to listen to the lies of Satan.

⁷So give yourselves to God. Stand against the devil, and he will run away from you. James 4:7 (ERV)

2. Get Your Emotions In Gear. You’re a new creature, so it’s time to get excited, my friend. Tell someone — your best friend, your boyfriend or girlfriend, your husband or wife, your kids, your parents and grandparents, your neighbors, or your co-workers. Those who are Christians will get excited while those who are still lost will say something like “that’s nice” and give you a strange look (you can work on them later).

3. Engage your free will and take action.

• Seek other Christians to help with your spiritual growth. Find a Christian church that teaches the only way to God is through His Son, Jesus Christ. If you have a church now and it is a place where believers come together to learn fellowship and encourage one another, stay there and get involved in a Bible study group.If your current church teaches the gospel of good works and religious rituals as the way to Heaven, you might be thinking that if you stay, you can change their teachings. But you will never change a cult or religion established by Satan. So it’s time to get out, and don’t look back.
• Use the power of prayer (James 1:5) to seek God’s wisdom and direction for your life.

⁵Do any of you need wisdom? Ask God for it. He is generous and enjoys giving to everyone. So he will give you wisdom. James 1:5 (ERV)

• It is through prayer that you can have intimate and personal conversations with your Father, tell Him how much you love Him, confess your struggles and sins and find forgiveness, share your desires, and discuss your family and friends. Remember, there isn’t any temptation in your life that Jesus hasn’t already experienced (Hebrews 4:15) so He understands and has compassion. Even if you don’t know exactly what to pray for sometimes, God has provided the safety net you need through the Holy Spirit.

⁶To show that you are his children, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who cries out, “Father, my Father. Galatians 4:6 (GNT)

• The Holy Spirit knows exactly what you need, and will pray to your Father when you need Him to do so. 

Read the Bible because it’s the only place God can speak to you and where you can build your relationship with your Father and your brother, Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit was given to you for the purpose of unlocking the scriptures and teaching you God’s way.

¹³We speak about these things also. We do not use words of man’s wisdom. We use words given to us by the Holy Spirit. We use these words to tell what the Holy Spirit wants to say to those who put their trust in Him. 1 Corinthians 2:13 (NLV)

Read this book like you would read a favorite novel. The late Tom Clancy was one of my favorite authors; in fact, you could call me a Tom Clancy groupie. He used the same format in each of his books — the first 300 pages were always a struggle for me, because that is where he introduced his characters and developed his plot. But, I knew that the remaining 500 or 600 pages would be filled with nonstop excitement and adventure.

The Bible is the much the same. No matter where you begin, you may find the first 300 pages difficult to understand, but trust me, the Holy Spirit will begin to reveal God’s word to you in ways that you could never even imagine.

You don’t have to start with Genesis — you can begin anywhere. I started in the Book of Acts, which talks about the conversion of the apostle, Paul, and the start of his ministry. Then I read the remainder of the New Testament and started on the Old Testament.

Just read it and don’t try to dissect each verse. If you don’t understand it all, don’t worry. You will eventually begin to grasp the broad concepts of God’s word, finding that He really loves you and wants to renew His relationship with you through His Son, Jesus Christ.  And Satan is on earth to destroy anything good God has planned for you if you let him.

As you mature in Christ, the Holy Spirit will open more of the Bible to your understanding. Just read your Bible and the Holy Spirit will take it from there. Understanding will come only when you start reading God’s word on a regular basis.

Your New Calling

Don’t miss this part, my friend  —  you are no longer a sinner. You’re a saint now  —  a child of the living God. You are an ambassador of God on this earth — the boots on the ground in this world for Jesus Christ. It is now your job to share the love of Christ with everyone around you and to help build the Kingdom of God on this earth before His return.

What do I mean by “share the love of Christ with everyone around you?”  You now have the fruits of the Spirit inside of you, (Galatians 5:22-23) so let those fruits begin to grow, and they will become evident in your life. The closer you draw to God and seek a relationship with Jesus Christ, your Savior, these fruits will begin to blossom in you, and others will begin to see Jesus in you and through you.

Remember, you are under a new covenant that says Jesus is in me and I am in Jesus. He lives in you as the Holy Spirit, and will lead you in a way (if you allow Him) where everything you do and say will come from God and nothing from you (your old nature).

Don’t think that you must confront everyone you meet and tell them that they are a sinner and going to hell if they don’t accept Jesus. Seek God first, and He will use the fruits of the Spirit in you to love the lost into finding Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Be open and willing to do His will, and He will lead you to the lost.

You will become a light in the darkness of this world and draw the lost to you by how you live your life for God. Sometimes God will use you to plant the seed of Jesus Christ in someone’s heart and sometimes He will use you to water that seed with an encouraging word or by your example of how you live your life through Jesus Christ. And for some, you will be given the extreme honor by God to lead a sinner to his or her salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ.

It’s a group effort and God will use each of us to fulfill His eternal plan, which involves the redemption of men and women from the curse of sin and death — you only have to allow Him. The body of Christ (all of your Christian brothers and sisters) needs the special gifts you were given so that we can stand together, arms linked around the world, to do battle through Christ against Satan and his demonic minions.

This is your new calling, my beloved. To share the love of Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, expecting results from God — just living your faith (Jesus Christ) by being an example of the new spirit-filled nature you’ve been given (Holy Spirit). If you do this, God will take care of everything else. To me it just makes common sense.

Need a Bible to Get Started?

Common Sense Ministries was created by the Grace of God for one purpose — to teach the simplicity of the Bible. We want you to fall in love with the Word of God, not just a verse here and there, but the entire book. However, we know that you can’t fall in love with something you don’t have. If you need a Bible, Common Sense Ministries will send you one for free. Simply complete the request form, email it to us, and we’ll take care of the rest.

Until next time, my friend, may Mercy, Peace, and Love be multiplied to you.