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Day 2 or January 2. Does God really mean what He says? Our thought today is rooted in Genesis

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chapter 3 verse 4.

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"'You will not certainly die,' the snake said to the woman."

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Now the big picture surrounding this verse. After such a promising start it all goes rotten

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very quickly because man and woman decide that they know better than God who created

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them. There is only one thing that they are told not to do, and so they do it. Isn't

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that just like people today? They could have eaten from any tree in the garden but choose

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to eat from the prohibited one. This results in being evicted from the Garden of Eden,

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and is usually referred to as the fall of mankind, when they slip from the perfect state

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God intended for them. Following their exit from their garden home, Adam and Eve, names

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that literally mean man and woman, begin a family by having two sons called Cain and

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Abel. They have learned the hard way that God really does mean what He says. It has

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cost them a beautiful home in a fabulous garden that can never be retrieved. Perhaps they'll

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believe God next time.

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And now our action step for today. Discipline seems to be slipping out of vogue in our twenty-first

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century society. We regularly hear children being told, This is your last chance, over

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and over again. Even in airports we hear public announcements for the final call for flight

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so and so, and this is repeated several times, so that final becomes meaningless, and we

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only react when we hear that it's the last and final call. So it's not surprising that

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people can develop a very sceptical view of statements in the Bible that seem categorical

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and final. God told Eve that she would die if she ate the fruit from the tree. Later,

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when she gets a second opinion, that she may have misunderstood or misheard, she is easily

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persuaded. Unlike everyone else, God always means what He says. The Bible is full of wonderful

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advice and promises, and they are all for our benefit. Take God at His Word, and enjoy

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life to the full.