“When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.” - James 1:13-14

Christian or not, we all have desires. We’re all faced with temptations — even Jesus was… “we do not have a high priest [Jesus] who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet was without sin.” - Hebrews 4:15.

When God first created the world, why did he create the tree of knowledge of good and evil when it wasn’t meant for Adam or Eve to eat? Sounds kind of crazy that He would create something to eat, but the only use it would be to man is to look at or climb. As I started studying Genesis 3, God revealed his truth. What if God created this fruit tree that the woman saw as “good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom” to give us a choice? Our first real battle between our skin and his Spirit. Choose God or our fleshly desire. Verse 4 and 5 assure us that the serpent, Satan, told Eve:

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

Two things — first being Satan’s lies. Oh, the number of them! One of those lies is in the verse above: “You will not surely die,” Although Eve didn’t die physically at the moment she ate the fruit, sin did kill the perfection God blessed her with. James 1:15 says, “Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown gives birth to death.” I don’t think the wisdom Eve desired was the wisdom she was thinking it would be. Satan’s "wisdom" isn’t wisdom at all. I would call it human judgement, when we think on impulse instead of his pulse. I wonder if this whole confusion of "wisdom" and real wisdom leads to that much more importance of James 1:5:

“If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.”

Wisdom only comes from God.

I’m going to say that this tree of knowledge of good and evil was beautiful and colorful. Delightful in every way, in fact. I think it stood out from the other crowd of trees. The Bible even says in Genesis 2:9 that this tree was in the middle of the garden! So why on Earth would God forbid Adam and Eve from enjoying its fruit? To teach us a lesson, one I still have yet to learn. We have desires and temptations flowing out of the rivers, and boy, they look good. God provides free will, not force. Of course, he wants us to choose him over our fleshly wants. This is sacrifice. What better example than when God sacrificed his son for you, for me. The challenge: make a decision, big or small, today to choose him.