Enticing Eve - Intentionally Focused {Week 4}

Wow! How many times have I read the book of Genesis? Maybe a hundred! (at least the first few chapters anyways). Even so, this morning in my Good Morning Girls study, my heart was taught even more from Genesis chapter 3.

This week in GMG we are focusing on being intentional in our marriage. And what a week to focus on this, as Valentine's Day is this Friday!

Today we read through chapter three and focused in on verse six. I want to share this scripture with you and what I took away from it today. I hope that it encourages your heart - whether you are already married, single, and hoping to be married one day in the future.

We all remember that God made Adam and Eve and set them in a beautiful garden. He told them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or they would die. Even so, when temptation came along, Eve buckled. Why? What was it that caught her eye and so moved her heart to disobey God and to persuade her husband to disobey God too?

"So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her and he ate."

Genesis 3:6

In this verse, Eve's heart was pulled away from pleasing God by her desire for three things:

1. Provision - she saw that the tree was good for food, even though the entire garden was FULL of food that she and Adam could enjoy together.
2. Pretties - The tree and its fruit was pleasant to the eyes.
3. Power - the tree could make her wise, thus giving her an edge, an upper-hand.

Oh my heart! How we as women are drawn to these three things daily! The pleasures of life, those things that could lead our hearts from God, always look or sound appealing or we wouldn't even want them!

Because Eve caved to her flesh and listened to a lie, she chose to disobey her Creator and lead her husband down the same path. She LEAD her husband! Right there is part of the problem!

We, as wives, are to be helpers to our husbands (Gen. 2:18). We are to help lighten the load that they carry and encourage their hearts. We are to cheer them on when the world comes against them and we are to be their safe place, where they can be themselves and be accepted.

Eve was enticed by provision, pretties and power, all things that we as women want and are drawn to. Yet instead of receiving these things God's intended way (because none of those things are evil or wrong), she went about getting them HER WAY and in the end that lead to separation from God. Death was the outcome of Eve's disobedience to God. Death not only came to her, but to her husband as well, as she encouraged her husband in disobedience.

I have much more to learn from Adam and Eve, as from so many other people's life stories in the Bible. But today I choose to be more aware of what I'm enticed by in this life, how I respond to it, and how I try to sway my husband's decisions about these things as well. Temptation WILL come, but it's how I respond to that temptation that's important.

Today I choose to support my husband, pray for him and be his cheerleader. I choose to follow his lead as he follows God. May we as wives, and women in waiting, draw nearer to God and be aware of the devil's schemes.

God bless you abundantly,