Read Genesis 2:16-17- 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “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.”

Here is a little play on both commands and God getting attention on what he is inviting us into. The phrase, free to eat, some translations have surely or certainly eat, in the original language was eat, eat. It was an emphasis, by repeating the word. God is saying, “I’m commanding you to eat, eat from all that I have given you.”

But the second command is, “don’t eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil because you will, die, die.” See that certainly, same idea as above. You can eat, eat according to God’s way or you will die, die, according to your way. The second command is don’t eat, because you will die, but it is more about if you depend on self, on the immaturity of self, living by your own wisdom, destruction will come.

Fast-forward briefly to Genesis 3:6- When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.

We’ll get into more of this in the weeks to come, I want to draw your attention to what Eve and Adam did, they were free to eat, eat by trusting God and the Tree of Life or they can take things into their own hands, live by their own wisdom of what they think life should look like and that leads to destruction. If you take things into your own hands it leads to destruction, you die, die.

Romans 5:12- 12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—

The layers of death as we will see is back in exile, Adam and Eve had to leave the garden, they were in the wilderness, alive physically, but dead to God and that relationship.
So many times, I have simply seen this passage as the invitation to free choice, that God gave us free choice. Yes, to a degree, that is true, but I think it is bigger than that. I think it more than that. I believe this is creations divine invitation to trust God’s wisdom and life. Versus taking matters into our own hands that lead to destruction.

If you want to experience life, his goodness, a flourishing reality of God’s presence and provision, then trust his wisdom for life.

If you want to experience desolation and destruction, bad fruit, non-functional, broken reality of life, then choose your childish way.

That may sound harsh, but folks, I’ve see that firsthand in my own life. The number of times, I don’t trust God’s wisdom, and I take matter in my own hands you know what the result is? Desolation, brokenness, bad fruit.

John Walton, in his book, “The Lost World of Adam and Eve shares it this way. “Life is gained in the presence of God and wisdom is his gift (not to be taken on one’s own). God is the source and center of wisdom – not us... life and wisdom are the gifts of God, and human representatives incurred guilt for all of us by grasping the latter illegitimately and therefore losing the former.”

When we go grasping for life our way, we lose a deeper sense of life God’s way. Tree of knowledge of good and bad was the original “My Truth” declaration. It’s “my truth”, that’s “your truth”, you can’t tell me what’s right for me or not because it is “my truth.”