Anxiety Lesson 2: Cain and Abel: Personal Choice
What an image of humanity - taken out by the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Have you ever known anyone who has undermined his/her own life by his/her personal "rightness?" You know what I mean. When a person digs in the heels and will not budge because being right in his/her own knowledge is more important than anyone or anything else.
Sadly, without any understanding of the nature of God, people live life crushed under the weight of the Tree of Knowledge, floundering to determine what might be good or what might be evil. At times, if they do ever try to encounter God, they may even question or become angry in their lack of understanding because of limited or mistaken knowledge. For believers who have encountered Christ and come to a personal relationship with the Living God, they have learned that only Jesus can lift the weight of the tree and connect a believer back to the thoughts of God.
In Anxiety Lesson 1, I discuss the nature of God and the nature of sin. Let me prayerfully remind us of God’s nature because when I talk with people who are anxious, let's be realistic, questioning God is a common theme.
God is the creator of the universe, and he stays consistent from beginning to end. Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Psalm 102:27 “But you [My God] are the same, and your years will never end.” Malachi 3:6 “Because I, the Lord, have not changed, you descendants of Jacob have not been destroyed.” John 1:1-3 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created.” Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” James 1:17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” Revelation 22:13 “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
In the New Testament, the emphasis switches to the unchanging character of Christ, but the narrative never alters. The Creator’s character is never in question. From the time God lovingly replaces Adam and Eve’s itchy fig leaves with animal hides and gently escorts them out of the garden rather than administering a wrathful “smoting,” all the way to the final Alpha and Omega, the Bible offers lesson after lesson on relationship building. A regular HGTV do it yourself manual of the good, bad, and ugly examples of how to enter into fellowship with our Creator and stave off the crushing anxieties of this world.
Once again because I am a visual person, James 1:16-18 provides me a snapshot of all I have been elaborating.
Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. By his own choice, he gave us birth by the word of truth so that we would be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. James 1:16-18 (CSB)
For eons, His heavenly lights have been the guiding compass for mankind. The sun literally provides the working daylight hours. The moon and the Northern Star are the focal points of the night sky by which all night navigation takes place. Without these heavenly lights, life could not function or exist. I like to think of myself as encased in God’s heavenly lights - my own protective heavenly light bubble.
By His own choice, he gave us birth by the word of truth. Phrases like this are so easy to skip over when we read because they are slightly awkward and confusing at first glance. Doing a little digging into the original Greek for the phraseology for “word of truth” doesn’t take long to discover that in other areas of the New Testament, the same word for truth here is the identical word from which we obtain the word for Gospel. John 1:14 tells us that “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us ...full of grace and truth.” I feel confident in my paraphrasing of this line of James to read - By God’s own choice, he gave us birth into his kingdom by his son, Jesus Christ, the word of truth. James 1:17-18. In other words, if I believe in Jesus Christ as the son of God, I don't have to be crushed by the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I have a way back - a connection back to the kingdom. God chose me. What a life giving, peace filling thought!
Now before we get to the first fruits, which takes us back to Cain and Abel, let’s recap my major premises and make sure we understand this graphic .
1. God does not change - He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
2. Our sin does not separate us from God - It is our own knowledge of our sin that separates
us from God.
3. God encases us in our own heavenly lights 24/7 with Jesus Christ - the Word of Truth -
available at our side, offering a loving relationship and desiring to shower us with good and perfect gifts.
Now - Cain and Abel. If you are not familiar with the story, you can find this dysfunctional family in Genesis 4:1-16. Eve’s sons. Her boys. All that stress and terror of the first pregnancies and births - moms - we know no matter what the kids do, they are still ours.
Long story short, Cain and Abel both present offerings to the Lord, and God accepted Abel’s but rejected Cain’s. When I was little, I always thought that made God look like a pretty big jerk because first, he kicked Eve out of the garden for just eating some fruit and then why was he so mean to Cain. (You can infer from these two statements my childhood temperament.) But aren't these legitimate questions? If you do not firmly trust #1 - #3 above, doubt and anxiety begin to creep in. That is the first fruit you will bear. If you believe that your actions directly affect how God perceives you and that your behavior somehow changes how God feels toward you or that God is somehow a God whose moods are whimsical, and he stomps around and spitefully punishes people for minor rule breaking, no wonder anxiety grows first in your garden. You never can cultivate a faith that confidently knows Jesus can lift that Tree of Knowledge off of you!
So why did God reject Cain’s sacrifice.? Now we have to go back to #1. Had God changed? No. What did God want from Cain? He wanted to be in a relationship with Cain, and he wanted Cain’s daily fellowship, worship, and praise. This has been God’s expressed desire since the creation of man. #2 Did Cain’s sin separate him from God? No. God told him “do what is right and you will be accepted.” God simply said go back to the drawing board and see #1. There was no wrath. There was no “smoting.” All Cain had to do was heed God’s instructions, work the land, stay in his 24/7 light bubble, and allow his worship and fellowship with the Lord to give birth to acceptable first fruits just like his brother Abel apparently had been doing.
So how did things go so terribly off the rails? Cain made a choice. He could not take personal responsibility for his own behavior. His knowledge of his own shortcomings transported him to mental overload. Here, in the second people story in the Bible, we see the consequences of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in full force. The human mind cannot process so much information, and the anger went into overdrive. Rather than accepting his personal responsibility for the situation, Cain turned his hatred of his own failures toward his own obedient brother who rightly and justly earned the favor of God. Sounds a great deal like what we call “human nature” doesn’t it. Anxiety entered the world in the form of extreme anger and frustration and self-loathing and led to the first heinous crime. Cain’s first fruits were disobedience and murder.
If we are connected to our unchanging God through a daily relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we can stay connected to the Word of Truth and remain covered in our 24/7 light bubble. Our first fruits will overflow abundantly and rise to heaven as the Lord looks with favor on them and rains a shower of good and perfect gifts upon us. This is the life we are meant to lead even here on this broken earth just like Abel was doing...So why don’t we?
Coming Up Next - Anxiety Lesson 3: Noah: Be Sober-Minded
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