Desiring experience over command

God placed Adam and Eve in the garden and gave them everything they would need. The garden was perfect in every way. Only one tree’s fruit  was off-limits.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate…(Gen. 3:6).

Eve desired  what was forbidden. God has placed certain areas off-limits in our lives, too. This principle alone may awaken our desires.  For its often when we’re told we can’t do something, that we discover a growing desire to do that very thing (Rom. 7:8).

Whenever I have asked an audience the question, “Have any of you ever touched the painted surface when the sign read, “Do not Touch! Wet Paint!” I’m amazed at the numbers of hands that go up. The follow-up question, “Why didn’t you obey the sign?” always brings the same sheepish response, “I just wanted to see for myself.”

Just like Eve, we prefer personal experience over a command. If the command was given, we reason, someone, somewhere is keeping something from us that we deserve.

Our minds reeling under this intoxication, our desires are quick to redefine right from wrong and justify our actions. They most often do this through what our desires make us feel.

In 1960 Elvis Presley recorded the song “It Can’t be Wrong, When it Feels so Right.” The King put to music what our sinful natures had declared all along. Your desires can be trusted more than what God has said. You will be satisfied, if you give in to them.

When it comes to those things God has placed off-limits, the Bible declares another message: not only is it wrong, but it will bring disaster.

James writes,

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. ¹⁴ But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. ¹⁵ Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death (James 1:13-15).