© 2023 Don Pinson | [Download]
(Link not working? Right-click and select “Save As”.)

When I was ten years old, three ladies in the community where I grew up in Pike County, Kentucky came faithfully to our school each week to teach us the Bible.  They taught us Who God was, who we were, and what His plan was for our lives.  One of the things they taught us was to memorize the Ten Commandments.  Then they told us God wanted us to obey those Commandments.  So I decided I would obey the Ten Commandments.  I committed myself to “Have no other gods” before God, my Creator.  I committed to not steal or lie or desire what belonged to somebody else.  I committed to always obey my parents.  Was I in for an awakening!  I found out that, try as I might, sooner or later, I would break one of those Ten Commands.  And you see, our Bible teachers knew that’s exactly what would happen:  Because that’s the very reason God gave those Commands.

Perhaps you’re thinking:  “Don, I don’t understand.  Why would God give us a command that we couldn’t keep?”  He does so because He’s wiser than we are.  You see, He knows that when we refused to let His life indwell us in the Garden of Eden, we received instead “darkness” to indwell us.  That is:  We lost our understanding of why we were alive.  From then on, satan planted different ideas in our mind about Who God was and why we were alive.  As we believed his lies, we plunged into darkness about the reason for our existence.  Selfishness replaced purpose.  This would Continue reading →

© 2023 Don Pinson | [Download]
(Link not working? Right-click and select “Save As”.)

In the Garden of Eden God placed two trees which He named.  What we as man did with those two trees would determine all the rest of history.

Besides the Tree of Life, there was another Tree in that Paradise:  The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  This tree represented the opposite way of life.  This way of living would be motivated by what happened outside of man.  Instead of being inspired by the moving of the Life of God deep within him, if he chose to eat of this tree man would be rejecting God’s offer to come inside him and be his life.  He would be choosing a way in which he would make his own decisions, instead of allowing the flowing will of God to come through him.

Consider the name of this tree.  It was The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  The Hebrew word for knowledge comes from a root word which, in essence, means to know by experience.  If Adam ate of this tree he would be saying to God:  “God, I want to experience the good and experience the evil in a particular situation, and then make my own decision as to which I think is best for me.”  He would be saying Continue reading →

© 2023 Don Pinson | [Download]
(Link not working? Right-click and select “Save As”.)

Think of the potential:  Adam had the possibility of being a dwelling place for his Creator!  God—the Almighty—wanted to take up residence inside Adam.  He wanted to fill man’s mind with His mind.  He wanted to fill man’s will with His will.  God wanted to fill our emotions with His feelings.  Man had the opportunity to be the channel through which God could flow to the world.  But God has never been into making robots.  He wanted man to choose Him to be his life.  He wanted a relationship with man in which man made the choice to allow God to come inside him and express His life through him.

This was the reason for the two trees.  As the Scripture declares,

“And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” (Genesis 2:9)

God placed two trees in the Garden for the purpose of allowing man a choice as to whether he would receive the life of God as that which would indwell him—be his energy, his life.  He would not force his way into our hearts, raping and wounding us so as to prevent our being able to return His love.  He would woo us by showing us Himself.  He came to walk with Adam daily in the garden so mankind could Continue reading →