To Be Like God

And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.' " Then the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Genesis 3:2-5

"You will be like God..." Isn't that the ultimate of temptations? Perhaps you might object and say something like, "I don't want to be like God. I just want things to go well, or to be good for me and those I love." However, for that to happen, you would have to have god-like power. You would have to be able to control time and chance, sickness and sin, peace and conflict. In fact, to guarantee a positive outcome, you and I would have to go beyond even what God is willing to do. We would have to usurp human free will. We would have to make choices, or insure that choices are made which we believe would be good, even if the person we were choosing for didn't desire the choice we would make! The danger inherent here is incalculable. In order to do all this just for ourselves, we would in fact have to be God Himself! And there is only room for One of those. Only God can handle being like god. And though we may think we are only trying to be like god for a small slice of existence, we just aren't equipped to handle it.

If nothing else proves that we have no business with such power, the history of those people who have held some kind of power bordering on god-like throughout the ages is one of nothing but unrestrained evil. With few exceptions, the tyrants of so-called absolute power have succeeded only in spreading misery and death. The few very good rulers in the world's stage have invariably been those who truly served God and the people, and in this way gave up power for mercy and grace. These kind of leaders realized that all real authority is God's alone, and they serve at His whim. That should be how each of our lives are lived as well.

Your Joyfully Loquacious Believer,
LEE