Genesis 3 Devotional

The God Who Comes Looking

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.””Genesis 3:15 (BSB)

The first sin begins with a question about what God really said and ends with two people hiding among the trees. Adam and Eve reached for what God had withheld, and at once everything bent: shame between them, fear toward God, and blame passed along from the man to the woman to the serpent.

What God does next is the surprise of the chapter. He comes into the garden and calls to the man who is hiding. Before any curse falls on Adam or Eve, God promises that a child of the woman will crush the serpent's head, though he will be wounded in doing it (3:15). The rest of the Bible follows that promise all the way to Jesus. And before sending them out of Eden, God clothes them himself (3:21). Our instinct is still to hide and to cover ourselves. The gospel is that God comes looking, and he provides the covering we cannot make.

To think about: What do you tend to hide behind when you know you have done wrong, and what would it look like to answer when God calls instead?