My wife Cindy recently made a gift to “Samaritan’s Purse”. This is an organization that arose from Billy Graham’s ministry. It is one of the best charities in the country. They sent help to the Carolinas and to Los Angeles by the truckload. I strongly encourage you to support SP’s mission in helping the downtrodden. There is contact information at the end of this blog.
We received a very nice thank you letter from Franklin Graham. We also sent a check to the IRS……….and we never heard a word from them.
So……what’s the big difference? What distinguishes the check to the IRS from the check to Samaritan’s Purse?
It’s pretty obvious. The check to the IRS was mandatory. The check to SP was voluntary……..a gift. SP reacted with happiness, and gratitude because we gave freely…..out of love. The IRS didn’t respond because they were entitled. We were required to pay them. Love had nothing to do with it.
What does this parable have to do with God?
It goes to the very heart of our relationship with God. This post is a follow up to a recent post. “Adam, Eve, and the Serpent”. If you haven’t read it, you might want to.
Before the fall, Adam and Eve did not have the power of choice. They did as they were told. God was in absolute control. In a way, God was entitled to their obedience. After the fall, Adam and Eve had knowledge. They understood right and wrong. Even more importantly, they had the power to choose between right and wrong. At its highest level, they had the power to choose or reject God.
After the fall, loving God was no longer mandatory, required. Loving God became a gift, freely given from us to God. As such, our gift of love today becomes immensely more valuable than Adam and Eve’s mandatory gift of obedience before the fall. Like the check to SP, our gift of love is far more valuable, satisfying, both to God and to us, than our check to the IRS.
God didn’t have to put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden. He had to know the risk. He probably saw “the fall” coming. He may even have set the whole thing up.
The irony here is this:
God allows us to spit in his face. Because it feels so good…….both to him and to us……..when we don’t.
God allows us to spit in his face. Because it feels so good…….both to him and to us……..when we don’t.
And that is the key lesson of “the fall”
How you respond to this freedom……to spit in God’s face…….or to love him…….is the most important decision you will ever make.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 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.”
Genesis 3: 1-24, ESV
Samaritan’s Purse
P.O. Box 3000, Boone, NC 28607