Pray the Word with David Platt is a resource from Radical.net.

Genesis chapter 2, verses 16 and 17.

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.

From the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.

So this is God's clear command to Adam in Genesis chapter 2, to not eat from the tree of the

knowledge of good and evil. For in the day that he eats of that tree, he will surely die.

Now, there's so much we could talk about here with this particular command, what this means,

how this plays out in Genesis chapter 3. But the big picture that I want you to see, feel, as we pray according to this verse, is that God's command, is that God commands Adam here for his good.

God is telling Adam how to experience life through His word, through obedience to his word. God,

in giving this command, is warning Adam of death. If he does this, he will surely die,

which God does not desire. God desires Adam to experience life. And God is gracious and merciful and

loving enough to give Adam his word, to tell Adam the way to life, to tell Adam how to avoid

death. And the same exact thing is true. your life and my life today when it comes to

God's word. Sometimes we think that the commands of God are restrictive in our lives, that

living according to God's word keeps us from good, keeps us from what we desire, what we really want.

But the reality is, and we see it like crystal clear looking back at Genesis chapter 2 and 3, we'd think,

Adam, if you would have just believed God, If you wouldn't have trusted yourself, you'd

experience eternal life. But because you didn't believe God, because you didn't trust God,

because you trusted yourself and didn't believe the commands of God were good for you,

you experienced death. As we look back and see that crystal clear in Adam's

...