How To Fight Eve's Temptation

These thoughts will be in a Daily Verse later this week, but I wanted to post them here first. I was reading in Psalms of the amazing promises of pleasure and joy that God holds forth for His people, and I couldn't help but think, "Why would we ever turn from this?" And yet I do, every day. This Daily Verse grew out of my ponderings on the subject.


So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
~Genesis 3:6



The power of sin lies in its appeal to our desires. The very first sin started this way, and it has been that way ever since. No one sins out of duty; we sin because we want something. Eve saw three things about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: she sawe that it was "good for food," "a delight to the eyes," and "to be desired to make one wise." She liked what she saw, she wanted what she saw, and so she took what she saw-- to the ruin of us all.

Our sin is the same-- in the moment of temptation, the sin looks more desirable to us that obedience. Sin is pleasurable, and so we capitulate. The key to fighting sin, therefore, is to fight the pleasure of sin with a superior pleasure. The superior pleasure that alone kills sin is the fullness of joy in everything that God is and has promised to be for us.

Take the sin in the garden of Eden for example. Eve saw that the tree was good for food. What she should have remembered was that "the steadfast love of the Lord is better than life" (let alone fruit). She saw that it was a delight to the eyes. She should have known that "blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God," and that no delight can compare to seeing Him. Finally, she saw that it was desirable for making one wise. If only she had known and believed what the Psalmist said: "Nothing I desire compares with You!" With the help of the Holy Spirit, fighting the smoldering embers of sin's satisfaction with the blazing fire of joy in God is the only sure shield against the deceptive allure of sin.