Devotionals

---

Preoccupied with Managing Satan’s Business

Babangida Joseph

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.
Genesis 3:7 (NIV)

Sin always distracts us from the work God has given us and gives us another assignment to preoccupy our time. Before Adam’s sin his preoccupation was to dress and take care of the garden, and when he’s not working, he fellowshipped with the Father.

To dress the garden means to cultivate it and make it look better and eventually for it to yield fruit. But when he sinned, he had to literally leave the job assigned to him undone and go into hiding. Not only so, because he discovered he was naked, he has to sow fig leaves for a garment. The time he should be weeding the garden he was busy sowing fig leaves.

God was so gracious He came seeking man early enough. Supposing God had allowed Adam to continue in that state, say for a couple of weeks, Adam and Eve would have to sow new leaves every day to cover themselves. By this action alone, they’d be depriving the leaves from photosynthesizing which is an important process in fruit production. Who knows, maybe a lot of the trees we know today would have become extinct. In order to prevent that from happening, God had to slay an animal and make better clothing for them.

Imagine Adam attending to the garden and Eve busy with the animals. Anytime their futile covering comes off, they’d have to pause and rearrange their attire of fig leaves.

The problem here is, once a leaf leaves the branch, it dies. It is just a matter of time before that leaf shrivels, shrinks and loses form. Eventually it dries off.

So anytime satan tempts us, he wants us to yield to sin so that instead of doing God’s work, we are busy preoccupied with managing our sins – hiding in shame and guilt. Meanwhile God’s estate under our care is left unattended to. Through the conquering power of Jesus at work in our lives we will be able to refuse to be managers under satan’s payroll but busy in our Father’s vineyard.

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE