By Pastor Bill Hayden
It is in our DNA, since the fall of man, to point the finger at someone else when confronted with personal failure. When God created mankind, it was Adam whom He created first and placed in the most beautiful place on earth… the Garden of Eden. God placed Adam as the overseer and caretaker of the land of Eden before Eve was created for Adam.
After placing Adam in the perfect environment, God had one restriction for Adam to adhere to. Genesis 2:16-17 NIV “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” After a while God decided that Adam needed a helper and Eve was created from one 0f Adam’s ribs. They were to be fruitful, multiply, populate the earth and choose the Tree of Life, while avoiding the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Well, there was just one major problem in this new world…. a fallen angel was lurking in the garden as a serpent to break up this little family union. In this beautiful garden there were two very powerful trees. One was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil which would bring death and the other tree was the Tree of Life. The serpent deceived Eve into believing that if she ate from the forbidden tree that she would not die but she would have the knowledge that God had of Good and Evil. Eve and Adam ate the fruit from that tree and death came upon every living thing on the earth.
When it came time for them to give God answers for their deeds, Eve blamed the serpent and Adam blamed Eve. Neither one acknowledged that they chose to disregard what God had forbidden.
Adam should have been the first to confess that he made the decision to disobey God.
Shifting the blame, when you make wrong choices is an indication of self-righteousness. A self-righteous person will magnify another person’s failures and minimize their own, while much grace will be given to themselves. One should remove the beam from One’s own eye before removing the speck from the other person’s eye.
Matthew 7:1-2 ESV “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.