Grace For The Journey

  Everything was good and going well in the Garden of Eden.  It was Paradise!  Until that fateful day.  Adam and Eve were made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27) . . . but they weren’t satisfied with that most noble status, above and beyond all other created things (Psalm 8:4-8).  Our first parents grasped for more – they wanted to be God!  Their rebellion plunged all of creation into dishevel and corruption.

But God did not leave them there!

He made a promise to reverse the curse:

The Bible tells us in Genesis 3:15 that after Adam and Eve sinned God gave them this wonderful promise, ‘I will put enmity between you [Satan] and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He (Jesus) will crush your head, and you shall bruise His heel.’”

 Here we find the Gospel proclaimed in Genesis . . .

God’s first promise was to

Send a Savior for sinners.

But notice that this is a two-part promise.

First, God said He will put enmity between the devil and the woman.  Why?  Because in the midst of a great relationship, Adam and Eve rejected God’s Word and accepted the evil insinuations of Satan as truth.  They were now on the run from God and in relationship with the devil.

 But secondly, God, in His infinite love, grace and mercy, refused to let the tragic story end there.  He promised to separate Adam and Eve from the serpent and to drive a wedge between them . . . and He would do it through a promised Messiah whose name is Jesus Christ.  The promised Messiah was on the way, and He would ultimately crush the head of the serpent on Mt. Calvary.

God would cause the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent to do battle.  And along the way to glory, the promise given to the Messiah about the striking of His heel is to be received by us too.  The powers of evil attack us and strike our “heel” often.

But we must remember that only our heel is struck, not our head.

The serpent’s strike will hurt, but it will not kill us,

Because Jesus took our death on the Cross.

How often we learn this second part of the Gospel promise by way of painful providence!   We are tempted.  We are tried.  We are tested.  And we fail those tests all too frequently!  The waves of challenge seem to crash over us day and night.  But through it all, we have a power in us that is far greater than any power that comes up against us.  The Bible says in 1 John 4;4, “Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.”  You and I shall be bruised . . . but never beaten.

To be sure, every time the devil strikes our heel we cry out and we limp a bit.  But in those times of pain and defeat, let us never forget the Bible’s first Gospel promise:

Victory is assured through our conquering King, Jesus Christ,

The young Prince whose final, triumphant victory cry from the Cross

Caused the earth to shake and the rocks to split open!

Are you limping today?  Then limp all the way into glory, knowing the whole truth of God’s promise to fallen man.

Our Lord was victorious in conquering every last one of our enemies,

Including Satan and even the ultimate enemy: death itself.

Let that truth strengthen your walk with Christ this day.

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The Journey

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”