"If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it." - Genesis 4:7 -
This is what God said to Cain when Cain became angry and downcast for his offering did not find favor in God's eyes.
I can still remember the time when I read about this story on an illustrated Bible (separated into 10 books filled with a lot of pictures) and I saw a picture of how God accepted Abel's offering of a young flock while Cain put on a sullen face when his fruit offering was not accepted.
What first came to my mind was, "Why was Cain's offering not accepted?" I felt that it was unfair that his offering was not accepted while Abel's was and naturally, a person would feel the same way that he did if he saw that his father would find favor to his brother and not to him.
Then little did I know about the offerings themselves. As I was able to grasp more information about God and the Bible, I realized that all the offerings made in the Old Testament were made out of the first born of their flocks and is usually a spotless pure sheep (This signifies the coming of Jesus Christ who was the ultimate sacrifice for all of our sins).
No wonder Cain's offering was rejected. For it was not made of a pure and spotless animal which was the requirement for the offering. He could have asked his brother for one so that he can make another offering. But no. He let his negative emotions rule over him despite God's warning. And thus, the second sin came into fruition: murder.
If one looks at this story, a lot of us can relate of how we can sometimes become angry and sad just like Cain when one of our siblings found favor in our parent's eyes. We can become embittered and results in us doing awful things. While it is human nature to be angry and sad, we can always make the right choices to never let the sun go down while we're angry and to call out to God when we are in despair. Unfortunately, a lot of us choose to hold a grudge and wallow in our negative emotions. And when we choose to linger in these negative emotions, sin becomes apparent in the mind. We then think of a lot of negative and awful things in our mind and you might say that it's okay as long as it's just in the mind, but the mind is the seat where every desire is being plotted out. It is still considered a sin and will have control over the things that you do. As the saying goes, everything begins in the mind.
God said if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door. It all begins with how you think and if you let one negative thought linger without confessing it to the Lord, it gives way to sin. And sin desires to have you. It is the evil in our human fleshly nature and we must learn to rule over it. Of course we cannot rule over it by ourselves. Not with our flawed psyche. Not with our weak flesh. Not with the fleshly desires of our heart. For this battle is not ours alone. It can only be completely ruled over with God's mighty power. It has already been ruled over by Jesus Christ when he died for us on the cross. And all we got to do is to believe in Him and obey. Then His Holy Spirit will dwell among us which is our guarantee against sin and evil.
I can still remember the time when I read about this story on an illustrated Bible (separated into 10 books filled with a lot of pictures) and I saw a picture of how God accepted Abel's offering of a young flock while Cain put on a sullen face when his fruit offering was not accepted.
What first came to my mind was, "Why was Cain's offering not accepted?" I felt that it was unfair that his offering was not accepted while Abel's was and naturally, a person would feel the same way that he did if he saw that his father would find favor to his brother and not to him.
Then little did I know about the offerings themselves. As I was able to grasp more information about God and the Bible, I realized that all the offerings made in the Old Testament were made out of the first born of their flocks and is usually a spotless pure sheep (This signifies the coming of Jesus Christ who was the ultimate sacrifice for all of our sins).
No wonder Cain's offering was rejected. For it was not made of a pure and spotless animal which was the requirement for the offering. He could have asked his brother for one so that he can make another offering. But no. He let his negative emotions rule over him despite God's warning. And thus, the second sin came into fruition: murder.
If one looks at this story, a lot of us can relate of how we can sometimes become angry and sad just like Cain when one of our siblings found favor in our parent's eyes. We can become embittered and results in us doing awful things. While it is human nature to be angry and sad, we can always make the right choices to never let the sun go down while we're angry and to call out to God when we are in despair. Unfortunately, a lot of us choose to hold a grudge and wallow in our negative emotions. And when we choose to linger in these negative emotions, sin becomes apparent in the mind. We then think of a lot of negative and awful things in our mind and you might say that it's okay as long as it's just in the mind, but the mind is the seat where every desire is being plotted out. It is still considered a sin and will have control over the things that you do. As the saying goes, everything begins in the mind.
God said if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door. It all begins with how you think and if you let one negative thought linger without confessing it to the Lord, it gives way to sin. And sin desires to have you. It is the evil in our human fleshly nature and we must learn to rule over it. Of course we cannot rule over it by ourselves. Not with our flawed psyche. Not with our weak flesh. Not with the fleshly desires of our heart. For this battle is not ours alone. It can only be completely ruled over with God's mighty power. It has already been ruled over by Jesus Christ when he died for us on the cross. And all we got to do is to believe in Him and obey. Then His Holy Spirit will dwell among us which is our guarantee against sin and evil.
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