Walking through the story of Adam and eve .

Adam and Eve with the serpent

https://youtube.com/shorts/C3mMAJUnfTc?feature=share ( a short video on adam and Eve )

In the story of Adam and Eve, as with any narrative, it's crucial to attend to all the details. God embodies order and balance; He is also about structure and acts with purpose. Every word carries multi-dimensional meanings, resonating with different times, places, and cultures, addressing both the spirit and the flesh. The Bible is a masterpiece of God because it is literal, historical, and metaphorical. There are messages within messages, and God desires to unveil all mysteries to His children. However, He writes the word in a way that is intentionally perplexing to the world where the enemy resides, which is why He instructs us to use discernment, test the spirits, and assures us that His sheep will recognize His voice and follow Him.

Let's delve into a brief study of this story and highlight a few messages within the message. I will mention some topics frequently discussed and questioned. We will explore a couple of those here.

The first point is that when God created Adam, he was made in His image and likeness, unlike the angels. We were made to be as children of God. When God created the angels, they were beings intended to be with Him as companions and to fulfill God's will in service. You and I were meant for relationship, but if we remained in Heaven, we would only know holiness and not fully understand love. Love requires a relationship, as it must be reciprocal. Love is cyclical in its life cycle, and yes, it has a life cycle. Let me explain. He loved us, and because He loved us, we are enabled to love Him. He gave His love, and we now have a choice to accept or reject that love, then we must be able to choose to return that love. A cycle. Love has a cycle in that it also grows and matures, so for that reason, we had to have a life outside of Him and have the ability to grow, learn, and choose.

Love requiring choice leads us to the next question concerning evil and its purpose. To explore that, let's look back at the serpent in the garden.

The serpent represents something here, which I won't elaborate on much. I will say this: just as a serpent sheds its skin, the fallen angels, specifically Lucifer, had to shed his angelic identity.

God didn't create evil, but through God, all things were made with purpose. Lucifer was the fallen angel who ultimately became Satan and was represented in the story of Adam and Eve in the form of a serpent. I will discuss those details further in a separate teaching. Since no identity existed in darkness because darkness is the absence of life, form, and substance, embodying emptiness, loss, and death, there was nothing in darkness to use to create a new identity. Therefore, Lucifer adapted by becoming the shape-shifter he is today, stealing many different identities and forms, each time adopting a new character.

He became a master of manipulation and deception. Everything in the darkness became a perversion of light because of this, and this is also why Satan is known as the counterfeit, as he has to mimic whatever form he takes. He fully exploits this to deceive man. That became his primary tactic in the battle he waged against God. He waged war against man because it was the only way he knew he could hurt God.

The garden, Adam and Eve walked with God. They were learning from Him, and God placed the tree of life, of good and evil, in the garden at the center. God knows how things turn out; He had prepared many paths for man and provided many choices. Each path He planned had an end result, and while He knows because everything is planned, He doesn't know which path we will choose. Again, I will share these details with you another time. I already anticipate the questions, comments, and preconceived judgments. Patiently waiting, you will eventually get your answers.

The tree wasn't a planned temptation for man but part of God's broader plan and test. God knew that at some point, man would fall, and that had to happen.

The tree held the knowledge of good and evil, and the serpent twisted God's words, manipulating man, causing them to doubt God and give in to their desires to be more like God. This was a distorted idea of what they thought God wanted. The knowledge of good and evil, though, was knowledge given outside of the relationship with God. This means that knowledge already contained corrupted seed because God wanted us to choose love, to choose Him. This showed Him they weren't ready and had much to learn. While they failed and God had to address their shortcomings with a judgment that was about correction, this was acceptable and still within God's control.

How so? God knew they would fall as they grew, and He planned to use the enemy to do the harder work, which He couldn't do directly because it is out of character and doesn't align with who God is. God is a just God, but He fully utilized the darkness to bring balance. While the enemy was in the dark to God's upper hand.

God had a purpose for evil to be the contrast to that which is good and to be the comparison to Him. This comparison allows people to see God as good, love, and overall what is better. People stumble over the free will concept a lot, in part to escape accountability for the consequences of our choices, pointing the finger of blame at God. The questions are all the same: if God is all-knowing, all-loving, then why all this? If God is all-powerful, God is exercising His infinite wisdom and using the knowledge as well as His foresight to judge accordingly and act accordingly. A show of power or force isn't what He is about; that's an abuse of power and against His nature.