Unfortunately, as sinful image-bearers, we don’t “do” relationship very well. We are poor lovers of God and others. As fallen male and female image-bearers, we are both victims and agents. We’re deeply wounded by others, and in turn, we deeply wound them. Everyone is hurting, and everyone is sinning. As we experience pain in relationships, our primary commitment becomes to “save” our own lives. We live first to protect ourselves, and then to manipulate others to meet our needs on our terms.
Rather than depending on the Father for Life, we try to make our lives work in the way that seems best to us. For fallen male image-bearers this means that instead of pursuing others relationally in proactive strength and loving involvement, we abdicate through some form of relational avoidance. We “step out” rather than “step in.” we retreat rather than advance. For female image-bearers this means that instead of wooing others relationally in loving nourishment and vulnerable nurture, we manipulate through some form of control.  We strive and contend rather than relate vulnerably with a yielded and undemanding spirit.
Rather than love God or others, we instead live our lives to protect ourselves by preserving our lives from pain and promoting our own satisfaction on our own terms.  We make it all about us. We approach others for our own sake, not theirs. Our chosen masculine or feminine sin violates relationship and separates us from the life that comes from dependent connectedness to the Father. Only He can meet a male image-bearer’s deep hunger and thirst for impact. Only He can meet a female image-bearer’s deep hunger and thirst for intimacy.
Our Heavenly Father lovingly beckons us to repent, to shift our understanding of where life comes from, and to change the direction of our lives. He calls us to turn from masculine or feminine self-protection, self-preservation, and self-promotion back to Him. He invites us to enjoy anew His original dignified design and noble calling for us as His sons and daughters.

 

The Father Tells Us

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.
Proverbs 14:12

“My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”
Jeremiah 2:11-13

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God….For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 3:23 & 6:23

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The Fall

3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

6 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. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hidfrom the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LordGod called to the man, “Where are you?”

10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraidbecause I was naked; so I hid.”

11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,

“Cursed are you above all livestock
    and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
    and you will eat dust
    all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity
    between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring[a] and hers;
he will crush[b] your head,
    and you will strike his heel.”

16 To the woman he said,

“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
    with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
    and he will rule over you.”

17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’

“Cursed is the ground because of you;
    through painful toil you will eat food from it
    all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
    and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
    you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
    since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
    and to dust you will return.”

20 Adam[c] named his wife Eve,[d] because she would become the mother of all the living.

21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side[e] of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

“Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and you will delight in the richest of fare.
Give ear and come to me;
listen, that you may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
my faithful love promised to David.
“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off —for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.
I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions —it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith —and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.