God gives specific instructions to Adam when he is placed in the garden. He is to tend and watch over it. This is the first command given to man, but this command comes with a warning. For all of his efforts and work that He puts in, he may harvest and eat any of the fruit that grows in the garden, except for one. God tells Adam that if he eats of that particular tree’s fruit, he is sure to die. It is in this command that the enemy sees an opportunity to convince the one made in the image of God, that God does not ultimately know best. He asks the same question to Eve that he asks to many of us when we are faced with temptation: “Did God really say that it was that bad?” This is the core belief that the enemy tries to get us to undo in our minds, that God does not truly know what is best. When faced with temptation, Eve gives in to the thought that God was not telling the truth. Instead of trusting the one who has created her, loved her, and provided for her all of her life, she believes the lie that there is something better than that which she already knows. Adam watches on as His own flesh and blood is deceived and in turn is deceived himself. 

In this account of first sin, there can be the temptation to criticize and count the ways that we would have acted differently. But quite often, when the enemy comes to us with temptation it is still this same lie that we are being told. “Does God truly know what is best?” Let us resist temptation, knowing well that God’s love for us extends down into our world, reaches out to us in our lowly position and loves us and provides a way for us to be made right with Him again.