The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil by Nancy Nair

God so wants us to be excited about being spiritually close to Him! When I think about how close I want to be with God, I think about how fortunate Adam was when he and God would walk and talk together in the Garden of Eden. Can you imagine how glorious that was?

Among the multitude of things they must have talked about, God spoke to Adam about the one tree from which he must not eat: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam likely replied, “I won’t eat of that tree because you have asked me not to,” but he probably didn’t give it much more thought.

Because God saw that Adam needed someone like him, a helper to love and be with, He formed Eve from Adam and the earth. Wow…can you imagine the joy of that moment?

Now let me take you to the next scene in my imagination. Even though Adam and Eve were now together, I doubt that Adam took the time (or even thought it was important) to tell Eve about his promise to God regarding eating from a certain tree. Isn’t it sad that Adam didn’t say to her, “That tree’s fruit looks good to eat, but God asked me not to eat from that tree. Even though it is tempting, it is something I won’t do because I love God.”

If only he had done that! If Eve had already been aware of how important it was for Adam to keep his promise to God, she would have known to tell Satan to get lost! Instead, Eve was tempted and she even told Adam, “Eat of this tree; nothing will happen to you.” Unfortunately, because Adam hadn’t thought about why God didn’t want him to eat of the tree, he wasn’t prepared spiritually and he could not lead Eve in God’s ways.

We need to understand why God wants us to be obedient to Him, to keep His ordinances and his statutes, because if we only obey him blindly and without understanding, we can never stand firm; we will always be tempted to disobey Him.