Don't Take The Bait

When I was probably a freshman in high school, I was playing JV basketball, and I can specifically remember one game. And the game was going very badly for us. We kinda sucked. We were behind. We weren’t scoring many points. The other team was. 

Then we finally got to halftime.

This is so embarrassing to admit, but during halftime we were so defeated and so upset, that we started pointing our fingers and started to actually believe that the reason we were losing was because of one thing and one thing only:

The crowd. 

We thought the crowd was being too negative and that their negativity was affecting our playing and keeping us from playing well. We pointed our fingers at the crowd and blamed them for our own mistakes. We wanted to place blame for our own faults and failure. 

Sounds pretty stupid, huh??

We were placing blame because we felt like we were missing the mark. But instead of taking full responsibility and coming up with a game plan to fix what was broken (our team and ourselves), we chose to play the blame game and cast our failures onto somebody else.

You see, sometimes we fail to see that the very issues in our lives are not a result of our circumstances or the people in our lives. A lot of the time the issue starts with us. It’s an issue in our hearts. We take the bait of what Satan dangles in front of us, grabbing onto anything we can to excuse ourselves from our mistakes or emptiness.

In this blog I want to talk about a couple of people who also wanted to blame other people for their own mistakes. And unfortunately, the mistake that they made led to something terrible that we still feel to this day.

You see, these two people had everything. They had the perfect circumstances. The perfect home. The perfect view. They lived in paradise.

But they allowed just one thing to slither in and whisper a lie, a lie that created an emptiness they filled with the wrong thing.

We’re diving into Genesis 2:

Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

Now going into chapter 3:1-13: 

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

Because that’s what Satan will do. He’ll slither in and ask, “Is it really that bad if you look at that pornographic website or those social media accounts? Is it really that wrong to get black-out drunk? Is it really your fault for that mistake - sleeping with him again?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

Mmm mmm, Eve, NO. Don’t even give him the time of day!! Don’t dialogue with the devil! But Eve does, and this is what happens:

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

Notice what the first thing Adam did was?? Place blame. Point fingers. “Eve did it!!!”

Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Notice what the first thing Eve did was?? Place blame. Point fingers. “The snake did it!”

It wasn’t that Adam and Eve’s circumstances were imperfect or that their creator was imperfect. It wasn’t that God didn’t give them enough.

It was a heart issue within the two of them. They could point fingers all day long, but at the end of the day, they took the bait from Satan. 

And I don’t notice if you realize this, but that bait looked pretty healthy. It was an apple for crying out loud. Apples are good for you, right? The enemy likes to disguise the wrong things to look like the right things. He wants to feed lies into your brain that make you feel like the very bait he dangles in front of you is healthy bait you need to fill yourself up. He is a master in disguise, but we can’t take the bait like Adam and Eve did.

Because as a result, sin entered the world. The wrong kind of revival swept through the land. And you know what the sad thing is?

We’re continuing it. 

We as a generation want to blame all our problems on somebody else! We think when we’re not happy, it’s because we just need to get out of the season of life that we’re in, that we don’t have enough right where we’re at. We think when we don’t get anything out of the pastor’s sermon or don’t want to go to church, it’s because the pastor just sucks and church is boring. We think because we don’t make the starting line-up, the coaches are biased and just play their favorites. We think when we do terribly on a test, it’s because the professor didn’t teach well enough. But GUESS WHAT!!! The issue is probably not a result of your circumstance. The issue probably starts WITH YOU!

Let’s not be a generation that runs to the wrong things when things don’t go our way. Instead, let’s be a generation of the right kind of revival. Let’s not be a generation that reaches for that apple. God instructed Adam and Eve to not even touch it. Don’t touch it. Don’t look at it. Instead, turn away from it. Don’t listen to the lies of the enemy. Quit blaming other people for your own problems!!!! Leave behind those thoughts and that sin in your past and be a generation of a different kind of revival in your present. 

We as a generation like to place blame for all the things we don’t like about a situation, circumstance, or person. But let’s not be a generation that places blame for our own problems. Instead, let’s be a generation that can admit our faults and ask God to come invade and change things in our hearts that don’t align with His will… that don’t reflect who He wants us to be. 

I promise you that if as a generation we do that very thing - if we take a step down from our high pedestal and instead look at the heart issues, if we reach for Him instead of that apple - I think we’d be surprised at how often they start with us. From there we can ask God to help us navigate and work through these issues. With Him, we can overcome any struggle or trial. No matter what deep pains, issues, habits, or addictions we have, God can release us from the bondage we have ourselves in. Humble yourself. Check your heart. Then ask God to go to work. 

Adam and Eve had everything. But the enemy snuck in and whispered a lie that caused emptiness to creep into their hearts. So they took the bait Satan dangled to try and fill that hole up instead of asking God to. Learn from Adam and Eve!

You are probably at a point in your life where you have so many apples dangled in front of you. You are out there making your own decisions, deciding what you believe, going places you want to go, choosing what and who to put into your life. It’s hard. But as time goes on, you have to decide: are you going to be a warrior for Christ? Or a coward for the enemy?

And you know what? Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you need to follow one linear path in order to be “successful.” Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you gotta have a title in front of your name and have all the fortune and fame in order for you to finally “arrive” or “make it.” I don’t care what your past is, I don’t care about what messes are in your rearview mirror - Jesus Christ will give you the wisdom and the strength to change the lives of the people around you. To change the world.

I hear people say “Well if this happened, my life would be so much better. When I get done with this semester, things will be alright. When I’m done with this season, I can finally be happy. When I finally achieve this, I’ll finally arrive.” No. We can change systems. We can change seasons. But that isn’t the root of the problem. The root of the problem is a heart issue. But once we as a generation can push past ourselves, I think it’ll blow our socks off how much God will open our eyes to the revival we could start. 

I went a lot of my life thinking that once I had this or that - once I graduated high school, got through those finals, decided on a major, graduated college, got the perfect guy, had the dream home, landed the dream job, somehow I was finally going to arrive and be content with all things, getting rid of any emptiness I felt… just like how Adam and Eve thought the fruit from that tree would do that. But I can tell you that the enemy will sneak in and try to poke holes in your heart any way that he can, trying to make you feel empty. I can speak from experience - I have the dream home, I have the job I always wanted, I have the dream guy, but the devil still finds ways to make me feel emptiness, like there’s still something that’s just out of reach. But we gotta quit living this way.

It is time for revival. And it starts with you. No matter your past. No matter the circumstances at school or at home.

God has you right where He wants you. He has your feet planted on ground He wants you walking on. He woke you up this morning, put breath in your lungs, because He’s using you today. God has given you all that you need. He gave Adam and Eve all that they needed. But when the enemy tries to sneak in and whisper lies that there’s still something missing, that God hasn’t given you enough, that you’re not where you should be. When he dangles that apple right between your eyes, you look him dead in his, right past that apple, and you tell him to beat it. 

Don’t dialogue with the devil. Don’t take the bait. Run towards God. Watch revival happen.