Yes! There is Good News! 2.28.20

Sally and I have just purchased a “new to us” vehicle. Oh yes, we now have a car that was built in the 21st century. There are a lot of ‘bells and whistles’ that we have never seen before and so have caused some consternation for us. Thankfully, this car came equipped with a manual that explains, in detail, how the automatic temperature control works; how the CD player works; oh yes, even how
the headlight system works. I say thankfully, because it makes things much easier!

Many things around us today are quite technologically superior to our experience and so we need to understand how they work and how to use them so that we might enjoy the product more fully – the engineers that designed our car, our microwave, our DVD player and yes, even this computer, had the forethought to
supply a manual of operation with the product.

These items I have just mentioned are really quite simple, one might say infinitely more simple than the human beings that God created with Adam and Eve. And so, yes, they (and we) need instruction on how to conduct themselves. God put Adam
in the garden and told him to work the garden and take care of it. Work is part and parcel of living a good and productive life. Work is necessary to sustain the life of an individual – we all need to eat!

They were also commanded, by God, not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, in this story of Adam and Eve, we find that they bought into the lie that Satan brought to them. The serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened,
and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Satan convinced them that it was they and not God who should make the rules.

Have you bought into Satan’s lie? In many ways all of us have accepted this lie and we want to decide how to run our own lives. But you and I have been given a manual to guide us – He has given to us the Bible, the written word of God. It is filled with wisdom.

Things were much simpler back in the days of our first parents. God started them off with only a few instructions and so Satan only had to convince them to accept one lie. They sinned and of course, the rest is history. There are tens of thousands of lies out there today that our Adversary has placed in front of us; harmful lies; lies that lead to death. But God, the creator and designer of mankind, has equipped us with an amazing manual of how we should conduct our lives so as to have an easier life, a safer life and a more Godly life. And yet many
have never read these easy, gentle and Godly words from our Father in heaven.

I have appreciated the many of you who have seen me around town or even stopped me on the street to tell me how you enjoy these articles. My hope and prayer is that they may draw you into a closer relationship with God. But they will never and should never take the place of the words that proceed from the mouth
of God. Good words they are!!