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Genesis 3:4-6 "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." When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

It is the vehicle of choice whereby, we negotiate our way through life. All of us desire to make wise choices and obtain by them a good and prosperous life. We have all made choices that we regret and we all suffer from the bad choices of others. When we choose correctly, we applaud ourselves and bask in the glory of our wisdom. We regard bad choices as sin and good choices as not being the product of sin. We divide all of our choices between good and evil by the consequences that they bring.

The wisdom to choose correctly between good and evil is our common desire. The ability to make wise choices is to be valued above all things for we live and we die by the choices we make. Morality is the outcome of set rules and commands that govern human choice between good and evil. Eve was the first human being to seek out morality and gain by it control of her own destiny. The first sin in history was not a choice between good and evil but a choice by which that ability could be gained.

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Joshua 24:15a But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve,

Adam and Even did not bring the fall of Creation by making an evil choice but by choosing not to serve God in the choices that they made. They desired to serve themselves by the ability to choose between good and evil. It is this act that separated them from God and from the purpose that God intended for them, that of communing directly with God and glorifying Him. Adam and Eve traded God's purpose for their lives for the ability to seek our their own purpose.

Sin, at its root, is not a choice for evil but any choice made apart from God. Sin is that which negates the authority of God in our lives. Even good moral choices are sin when they are not made in response to God but instead to our desire to make wise choices for ourselves. God did not design us to be independent moral instruments, nor does he require that of us. God designed us to be instruments of His good works not instruments of our own work. Any work, whether it be good or evil, done apart from the direction of God, is sin and separates us from God and from eternal life found only in Him.

Just as it was a choice to remove the authority of God over us that brought death into the world, so is it a choice of acknowledging that authority in God's Son that returns us to a state of Grace. It is through Jesus that we are reconciled to God and are able to commune with Him in the same fashion that Adam and Eve had privilege to do before their disobedience.

Romans 8:38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Once in Christ, there is nothing that can separate us from God. Once God's authority has been established in our lives through faith in Christ, there is no power on earth or in heaven that can sever the bond between us and God. Thereafter, whether we choose for good or for evil, we belong wholly to God and He actively works all of our choices to our good.

Matt 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you, Away from me, you evildoers!"

Though in Christ, nothing can separate us from God yet, as Christians, we still sin. Our sin is not in our making poor choices between good and evil but our sin is in continuing to make choices apart from God's direction. God did not save us so that we could make better and wiser choices than we made before. God saved us not that we would be enabled to do our own good works in His name; but rather that His good works would be performed through us.

1 John 3:5-6 But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in Him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him. AND Hebrews 4:10-11 for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.

In Christ Jesus there is no sin and when we rest in Him, we don't commit sin; for in resting in Him we have ceased our own work and His work flows through us. When we abide in Jesus, we have ceased from choosing between good and evil and have surrendered that ability to Him. Abiding in Christ is allowing Him to choose for us and knowing that we are safe in Him no matter what may come.

Matt 19:14 Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.

God in His wisdom did not save us that we might, as we mature, become filled with wisdom and a supernatural ability to choose between good and evil correctly. Instead, God has chosen us in Christ to return us to the dependence of a small child upon Him. Children who fully trust in the choices He makes for us and rest in the comfort of His authority over us with no regrets of the past and no fear of the future. He does not desire morality from us but only the fullness of our love.