The Principle of Life (Genesis 2:15-17)

 

1)The standard of your life
-When you judge and decide something, there is a reason why you choose it. We can call it as a value system or a standard for your life. These have been formed during your life by what you preciously keep in your heart.
Matthew 6:21 “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
-It is very significant what is your treasure. This impacts our heart, mind, behavior, choice, sayings, and life. We pursue our treasure in our lives. This treasure is our standard. Therefore, some seek out success, fame, or money as their treasure. Others look for relationship or friendship with people, charity, or good works. Another pursues love, hope, or peace as a higher philosophical value. However, these cannot protect you because these are earthly treasures.
Matthew 6:19-20, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.”
2)Christians' treasure
-For Christians, there is the absolute treasure, that is, Jesus Christ. In Him, we can overcome all things.
2 Corinthians 4:7-10 “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.
-To have the correct and upright standard concerning human beings is to live according to the original principle of their lives. What is the principle of our lives? How can we live? 

 

1.The original principle for the life of human beings
1)the original principle that God gave
-After God created human beings in His own image (Gen.1:26-27), He entrusted this earth to them as the deputy king of the world (Gen.1:28; 2:15). In order for them to fulfill this cultural mandate and to maintain the relationship and fellowship with God, He gave the important principle for the life. It is Genesis 2:17, “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” God commanded Adam and Eve to keep and to stay in the Word of God. They as creatures could preserve their lives if they remained in the Word of God.
2)the lost principle
-Therefore, the principle to keep the Word of God is the method to live, to fulfill God's cultural mandate, and to have fellowship withe God the Creator. Conversely, Satan knew this principle and tempted human beings to unbelieve and disobey God's Word (Gen.3:1-6). It is that they obeyed to the saying of Satan. By unbelief and disobedience of human beings through the temptation of Satan, they broke the principle to live according to God's Word and then became the slaves of sin, death, and Satan.
Romans 6:16 “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?”

 

2.The principle of God's people
1)the restored principle after salvation
-Human beings as the slaves of sin, Satan, and death can become the child of God and people God by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ (Eph. 2:8-9). In the Old Testament, Exodus from Egypt explained this wonderful God's redemption for His people through the blood of lamb which is an archetype of Jesus' blood. All Israelites experienced the power of God's word through 10 plagues and split of Red Sea (Exod 5-14). Then, they lived in the wilderness during forty years. The life in the wilderness shows us how God's people should live. The principle of God's people is to live by every Word of God.
Deuteronomy 8:1-3 “Every commandment which I command you today you must be careful to observe, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land of which the LORD swore to your fathers. And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.
2)The Word-centered life
-We as the children of God must live the Gospel-centered and the Word-centered life. Jesus testified it through His temptation after forty days fasting in Matthew 4:1-11.  In this temptation, Jesus showed us the model to defeat Satan by the Word of God.
-How can we live according to the Word of God? We should live with faith toward God's Word. It means that we should have the time to immerse our thought, mind, heart, and spirit in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Romans 10:17 “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the message about Jesus.”
-If we hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, we can faith in God and His Word. The gospel makes us believe and realize that all God's Word is living and active.

 

Conclusion
1)Two important check-up points to live according to the Word
Psalm 1:2 “But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night.”
-First, if our delight and joy is in the Word of God, we now live according to the Word. What is you enjoyment in your alone time?
John 15:7 “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.”
-Second, if you pray to God according to God's will that is revealed in His Word, you are now live according to the Word. Do you now pray with the Word and the covenant?