Humans were the pinnacle of God’s creation on earth. God made everything else and after making man, He decided to rest. He looked at all His work and knew that with the man, all was good. For the first time, God did not call what He had created good but very good. Adam was an extension of God Himself on earth: he would make good decisions that would nurture and nourish everything else on earth. He had creative ability. He would speak in faith whatever he wanted (making his vision plain) and then work (put his vision and thoughts into action). And it would be done for him. But God looked at man, and realized that without a creature similar to him and one that he would love, man could not really be like Him. The essence of God was love. Everything He ever did was connected to His attraction to love. God wanted Adam to experience what He, God, did. So, He went about gifting Adam.
God took a piece of the man, something he would need, and made him his wife: the bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. In a sense, she was part of his DNA. When Adam looked at Eve his wife, he saw his own self. This was the dream for the man. This was the ideal picture. God knew that love was not love without choice. Just like He did not make man to obey Him without a voice, He did not make Eve to be Adam’s slave without a voice. God made Adam to be free to say “No” to God and made Eve to be free to say “No” to Adam. God banked on loving Adam as an encouragement for Adam to obey, trusting that God had his best in mind. Adam was also to love Eve so that she would obey him if he was able to cause her to trust him. God mirrored His relationship with us in Adam’s relationship with his wife. Then, Satan stepped in and gave man an option he foolishly thought was better than ALL God’s gifts (the fruit of the forbidden tree). Man and his perfect relationship with his Maker fell.
After man sinned, sad changes were observed. God called to Adam, the one He put in control by reason of order, and Adam did two things wrong, far from the ideal picture and very different from what God created Adam to be. He was now selfish and was afraid to take responsibility.
1. Focus on self: Before sin, man’s vision was outward focused. He took care of the garden and his woman. He did what God commanded him. After the fall, Adam’s response to God’s question of location was almost an accusation to God. God asked Adam (not Eve) where he was. Adam said he was naked… It sounded like “you God had me walking around naked the whole time?” It was all about him: his appearance, wanting to be covered instead of on display. He did not speak for himself and his wife. He did not care about God or his garden. This was our first view of the selfish man. Adam was demanding to be clothed: God was to fix what He left “incomplete” when He created him. “Right your wrong, God. Give ME my covering NOW.”
2. Blame shifting and lack of responsibility: Adam was not done speaking dishonorably to God. He followed up by saying that God gave him a wife that drove him into sin. In other words, if you did not give her to me, I very well would not have been disobedient to You. First, You messed up by giving me Eve. Second, SHE messed up by sinning. He completely forgot the beauty of their companionship, something He had enjoyed till the fall. He was no longer grateful. This was the same man who named her and called her the bone of his bones. Now he termed her his tempter to sin.
The responsibility had always been Adam’s. This is why God did not call to Adam and Eve but to Adam alone. Adam was the covering of his wife. The expectation was that when Adam showed up, his wife would show up with him. After all, they were connected in more ways than one. Before Adam messed up, he knew his role: over Eve and the garden. He would stay in relationship with God and work hard. And his wife and garden would be covered. All Eve needed to do was imitate everything she saw her husband doing. But that dream became squashed. God’s beautiful man was now in a cage the enemy created.
God knew it would take another man to fix what was broken: One that could be imitated, One who knew how to take responsibility (who would take the blame for wrong even for things He did not do), One who had relationship with God, One who watched God and could repeat what He saw God doing, One who was not bothered about His looks/appearance/shoes/clothes/reputation, One who wanted to watch over His wife, again One who would take responsibility. So, God sent Jesus. God sent Jesus to tell His male children: THIS is how to be a man, this is how to lead your servants, this is how to lead your wives, this is how to lead your children. Pray to Me continuously and you will hear from Me. Learn from Me. Then teach your wife and children what you have learned. Be patient with them as you see Jesus with His disciples. Feed them as Jesus did His disciples. Walk with them as Jesus did His disciples. Pay for them as Jesus did His disciples. Cover them as Jesus did His disciples. And I, God, will continue to replenish you. Jesus came and set the example. He died and resurrected. He ascended and sent the Replenisher for the men but also for the women, because He knew not all men would obey. Jesus was to be the firstborn of many like Him: the men who would obey.
But tradition, the slow steady and subtle killer, continues to hide and shield the work of the enemy. Jesus hammered on tradition while He was on earth. He saw what it was doing to the Pharisees, even to His disciples. His disciples could not see how to live life outside of tradition. They told Him it was impossible. Jesus answered “With God (that Replenishing Spirit you will receive), ALL things are possible.” Tradition is passed down from generation to generation. In the Gospels, two books dedicate whole chapters to genealogy, who begat whom. The passing of DNAs and good/bad strongholds. From time to time, you would find a king/man break from the wiles of his father (like Josiah). But in general, what one did, he would pass to the next generation. Jesus came to shake this. He Himself always spoke of His Own Father but He knew His was good: loving, holy, righteous, devoid of mistakes. He wanted the men He met to follow His Father not their fathers, who made the mistakes of their fathers before them: with the help of a blinding spirit from the enemy. In Matthew 23;30-32, Jesus speaks of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees who claimed they were not like their fathers when they were. He spoke harshly but truthfully in a bid to turn them.
Jesus taught several men, women and children, including His own disciples who would have gone the way of tradition until they walked with Jesus and believed. In believing, they obeyed Him. In obeying, they loved Him. And He called them (and He calls us) to obey and to share His truth. He calls the men to lean strictly on Him and learn from Him (Matthew 11:28-30) so that He will help them carry the burdens of their marriages and their families. For without Jesus’s help, men will remain like Adam, selfish, lacking responsibility and blaming their women. Jesus wants to heal the world through the men. Our men have the opportunity to be like Christ, to stand in their right place and for the women to respond by easily submitting to them. Every godly woman in her heart of hearts is rooting for the men, hoping that one day, they will realize who they are in Christ, stand in their place and be free to love and earn trust. We know that outside of God, life as a man may look daunting but we also trust that God who was able to keep Jesus through His Spirit can keep the men.
So, we plead with our men: will you go the way of the risen Jesus today or the way of fallen Adam? We trust you to go the way of the risen Jesus.
To God be the glory.
Prayer:
Father, we pray for every man seeking to get it right in the world today! They are hurting, begging for guidance. They like us have been blinded by tradition, lust, pride, and have had no guidance. Today, we place them in Your Supreme and able hands. Let them be lights in this darkened world. Let them be led by You. Let them lift You up, Jesus, that You may draw other men to You, and in doing so, bring about obedient and protected women and children in the Mighty Name of Jesus. Amen!!!