Does God really love me? Is this the best God has for me? Why is God holding out on me? These questions, which have echoed through the ages, started in the garden when Satan showed up to bring down Adam and Eve. After Satan told Eve that God’s Word was not true, he moved to God’s motive.

Genesis 3:4-5
But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Satan convinced Eve that God’s requirement for them to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was because God was holding them back from their true purpose. Eating what God had deemed forbidden fruit would allow them to be like God. The Deceiver led them to believe that God was holding out. His motive for this instruction was to make sure they didn’t become like him. And that intrigued the first couple.

This was not a temptation based on their environment. The garden was perfect and provided them with all they needed. They could live and eat freely and have perfect communion with the Creator. But Satan led them to believe that there was something better. They could be equal to God. They could be their own god.

And man has wanted the same thing ever since.

Our inherited sin nature causes us to want to call our own shots. We are intent on doing things our way in our timing. Sin drives us to be independent from God. We feel we need to take matters into our own hands and determine what is right and wrong for us. Our postmodern culture is the result of Satan’s challenge that God is holding out, that his ways are inadequate, and that we need to determine the rules as we go.

Satan holds out the promise of divinity. Like the kings of old and Satan himself, we say, “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:14). But the false throne of deity will come crashing down. It did for Satan. It did for Adam and Eve. And it will for us.

God does not hold out on us. He is powerfully at work for our good. He can be trusted with our lives and with our eternity

Father,
Forgive us for trying to dethrone you and buy Satan’s promise of divinity. You are always good. You never hold out on us. You have the best for us. Help us bow down and surrender to you as Lord of our lives. In Jesus’ name. Amen.