Just for a moment, imagine that you are our Heavenly Father and have spoken of a perfect world. From scratch, you created everything and everything was perfect in every way.
You then formed man from clay and breathed the breath of life into his lungs and he lived. On the other hand, you formed a woman and they lived in this perfect place called Gan Eden, the garden of Eden. There was no sickness, no death, no pain in childbirth and no sin.
Then, suddenly, man and woman, Adam and Eve, did something they had never done before: they sinned.
NOW, imagine if you could what you would have felt at that very moment, the first moment when Adam and Eve – your creation – rebelled for the first time. Imagine the grief you would feel. Think about it: at the time Adam and Eve first experienced sin, GD experienced the heartbreak of one of his children who sinned for the first time.
You may have believed in Yeshua (Jesus) for many years and never thought that when Adam and Eve first experienced the sin of rebellion and the repercussions of that sin, GD experienced it. suffered the consequences. sin for the first time too. If you are a parent, you can understand a little of what that moment must have felt like for our Father when His children sinned for the very first time.
I know I remember that moment of heartbreak and sadness when each of my sons chose to defy my words for the first time. Yes, I was angry. But I was more than angry. I was also broken, I was saddened and hurt.
As you consider these thoughts as you read this today, think a little further. Think for a moment that according to scriptures such as:
- “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9, TLV).
- “If anyone is in the Messiah, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Cor. 5:17).
- “Therefore we were buried with him by immersion in death – so that just as the Messiah was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in new life. For if we are united in the likeness of his death, we will certainly be united in his resurrection – knowing that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be put away, so that we no longer serve sin , for he who is dead is free from sin” (Romans 6:4-7).
- “NOW, why are you waiting? “Arise and be immersed, and cleanse your sins by calling on His Name” (Acts 22:16).
There are many other verses that cover this. When you and I accept Yeshua as our Messiah and are born again by accepting His Atonement into our lives, we become new and present ourselves before our G-d as new creations, having had our sins forgiven and washed away and all injustice removed.
At this time, spiritually, you and I stand before God in the same state that Adam and Eve stood before Him in the garden before the fall of sin. If this is true (and according to Scripture it is), then we must consider that after our repentance, which brought forgiveness, the next time we chose to sin, that moment was the same as when Adam and Eve chose sin.
GD would have looked at you and me with the same pained expression and broken heart that He looked at Adam and Eve. How our father must feel when we choose sin for him. The good news is that 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” is still true and we can start again and again.
Perhaps the next time the choice to sin confronts us, the thought of our sin breaking our Father’s heart will break our heart, so that we will choose not to break our Father’s heart.
Eric Tokajer is the author of With me in paradise, transient singularity, OY! How Did I Get Here?: Thirty-one Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before Entering Ministry, #ManWisdom: With Eric Tokajer, Jesus is to Christianity like pasta is to ItaliansAnd Gallations in context.
Author [email protected] (Rabbi Eric Tokajer)
