Grace and childlike faith

Genesis 2: 8-9, 15-17 "then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, 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 keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, 'You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 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.'"

The Bible tells us that we must become like children in order to please God and receive his grace. By reading Genesis 2, we can learn something about the natural state of man before sin entered the world. Man was a natural, earthly being, created to work and please God. Man's work, the mechanics of everyday living, pleased God. It is good for us to remember that when God created us, he was pleased with us just the way we were. Genesis 2:16-17 indicates that man did not know the difference between good and evil, and in this respect, man was much like a child. Jesus, in Mark 10:15, specifically states that "…whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it."

Man lost his childlike state when he sinned, and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the consequence is that we now know the difference between good and evil, and we must all deal with that knowledge. The big question is how do we revert back to the natural childlike state that pleases God? The grace of God, Jesus' death on the cross, dealt with the problem of the knowledge of good and evil. His death allows us to not worry about good and evil, and, like children, just strive to please God in the mechanics of everyday living.