Jesus spoke of Satan when he said, "Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies." from John 8:44.

Genesis 2:9 reads; "Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."

I wonder today if the churches these days are actually feasting from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The reason that Satan was such a successful deceiver is that he was so good at telling lies. He mixed them with elements of the truth. Even so, when he deceived Eve in the garden, it was all a lie.

There is an account of a high school principal in a Los Angeles school where girls were applying lipstick and removing the excess by kissing the bathroom mirrors. The principal made an announcement and told to them stop it, but the girls persisted in the practice.

After a time, the principal rounded the girls up and took them into the bathroom and lined them up facing the lipstick covered mirrors. She told them that it was a lot of trouble for the school janitors, one of whom was present, to clean their imprints from the glass, but that if they weren't going to stop there was little she could do about it.

Before the girls were allowed to leave, she asked the janitor to go ahead and clean the mirrors off. He picked up a mop and swished it in one of the toilet bowls and then walked over to the mirrors and began to "clean" the lipstick off. Problem solved.

Just a small amount of impurity changes the entire picture. When Eve's eyes were opened and she began to see evil, I wonder at what her regret after seeing it must have been. She must have grieved because she found out it was something she'd really not wanted to see. Adam too.

Satan had told her that with her newly acquired knowledge that she would be like God. Satan continues today to use the same trick to deceive members of cults. The LDS (Mormon) religious organization teaches its members that if they keep a certain standard of righteousness in this life that they can attain godhood in the life after, and rule over a planet of their own.

Satan's deceptions don't stop with the cults however. He continues to use the same deceptions within the Christian churches today, using whatever he can to keep people away from the "tree of life."

Today, churches zero in on "needs" and try to take care of them. If there are a bunch of neighborhood kids that are unchurched in the local community somebody says, "Hey! Let's start up a Christian daycare so these kids can learn about Jesus." It's apparent that their families aren't "training their children up right" so someone says, "Hey! Let's start a Sunday School program!"

You may be asking, "What's wrong with that?" Don't get me wrong. I taught Sunday School for three years, and I don't even have kids. I see the need.The thing is, was Sunday School ever mentioned in the Scriptures? The answer is no, because the fathers in the individual homes were supposed to be the spiritual leaders and in charge of the spiritual training of their children.

In Matthew 6:33 Jesus tells us, "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you."

This is why my chat nickname is seekHm1st. It's my belief that if the church sought a relationship with Jesus Christ first, we wouldn't have a need for a Sunday School program or for a neighborhood daycare. Instead churches throw program after program at problems that are outgrowths of people chasing after materialism, money and worldly cares.

I'm not saying that Sunday School is wrong, or that daycare is bad, but they are sometimes an example that illustrates an errant attitude among Christian churches that simply is not Scriptural. Originally, Sunday school was a program for orphans, because they had no father or mother to train them up spiritually and introduce them to Jesus. Today however it has often become a replacement for a father's time and teaching, excusing fathers to ignore their spiritual responsibility. This though, is a role they were given by God Himself.

Rather than throwing programs at our kids, why don't we throw ourselves into Biblical repentance and try seeking first His Word? Believe me, Satan does his level best to make churches ineffectual. One of the ways he does that is to deceive the churches into feasting still upon that "tree of knowledge."

There are many denominations because each one has the "correct interpretation" of doctrine, when none of them seem to be spiritually united in "the Way, the Truth and the Life." You can constantly fill your head without ever filling your heart. Once again, don't get me wrong. I am NOT saying doctrine is unimportant, or that we shouldn't recognize a need for different denominations. I am saying though that there is a gap that needs to be bridged.

The author of Hebrews tells us in Chapter 6;

"1Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God,

2 of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. 3 And this we will do, if God permits."
In this passage, we are actually encouraged, some would say even warned, to "leave" the "elementary" teachings about the Christ. That actually sounds like something you wouldn't want to do. But what are the elementary teachings?

The passage gives the answer. Laying again the foundation of repentance, instructions on baptisms, laying on of hands and so on. I don't know about you, but to me, that sounds just like some of the Scriptural things which denominations use to erect boundaries.

Denominations can fight about these elementary things when they should be "pressing on to maturity" in the teachings of righteousness. Verses 13 and 14 of Hebrews 5 tell us;

"13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil."

"Milk" teachings are head knowledge of Jesus and play a very important role in the life of a new believer, but the meat is a maturing believer's adult food which comes only from feasting from the tree of life, which is Jesus Christ Himself.

These days there are more books on Christianity and the Bible available than you can count, but people continually die in their sins. Why is that? Families are falling apart, people are gambling and looking at pornography. They're abusing drugs, sex, television and filling their time and hearts with being busy.

I wonder if all of these are an outgrowth of feasting on knowledge alone and not on life, on Jesus. How much of this would be happening if all the churches were addressing sin as it is, and preaching repentance?

I've known guys with a knowledge of Scripture easily above my own who didn't know what to do with that knowledge. Guys whose lives didn't reflect a love for Jesus in obedience to Him or any kind of love for others because of Him. Just because somebody feasts regularly from the tree of knowledge, they're not guaranteed a place in Heaven. Satan knows the Scriptures a lot better than I do. I think I know where he's ending up.

Just because people pray and talk of God doesn't mean they're going to Heaven either. The reality is whether or not a person has taken fruit from the "tree of life." Whether or not they've taken into themselves Jesus. He called Himself the "bread of Life." Take. Eat. He wanted us to have Him in the very marrow of our spiritual bones.

The Apostle Paul explains how he amassed knowledge, "15But when God, Who had set me apart even from my mother's womb and called me through His grace, was pleased 16to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus." Galatians 1:15-17

Paul didn't go to anyone, any man. He didn't compare the doctrinal stances of different denominations or check out their programs to see which ones worked and which didn't. He went straight to the One Who had knocked him off his horse. He went straight to "the tree of life," and look at the fruit that came from Paul's life as God used him.

Church life shouldn't be a rat race, chasing down problems in order to fix them all the time. Church life shouldn't be dependent on the pastor for all things spiritual. People looking for a great message every week are often searching for knowledge only, and not a relationship. Every pastor God uses is not a "dynamic" speaker. The pastor's job is to teach and we are to take what we learn at church and go home and study on our own---with God.

In Biblical times, a local church body didn't have a pastor/teacher who was paid to do all of the work. No, I am not condemning the practice of a paid clergy. The body of Christ was to have the Holy Spirit manifested through the entire body as they worked together in the Lord. The Spirit was not to be manifested all through the pastor.

Read 1st Timothy 3:2-7 sometime. Paul lays out the qualities to look for in a pastor. "Able to teach," is about the only nod toward knowledge. Again let me clarify, knowledge is important, but look at some of the other things in that passage. They're all important, but a couple are standouts in my mind. "He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect." Wow. How many of us have been to churches where the pastor's kids act up terribly (I know all kids do at times) or worse, reject Christ outright and live lives of dissipation. Do things go well in that church, under that pastor? Hardly.

There are quite a few qualifications in that passage, but they all make perfect sense. It would probably be easy to find an unbeliever who would tell you they've not met a pastor who met those qualifications.

A relationship centered church body needs a Biblical world view, not one centered on the man in the pulpit. There are lots of guys out there who are in love with Jesus, have a good knowledge of His Word, but who don't meet the "able to teach" it part, or the "manage his family" part. According to the Bible this means they are not supposed to be a pastor. This by no means however suggests that they can't serve the Lord in other ways that can be meaningful and highly productive for the Lord, just not as pastors.

Lots of people would disagree with my last statement I'm sure, but where does their opinion come from? It doesn't come from a Bible based world view.

When we read the Book of Revelation, we notice that the tree of Life is in Heaven, but that the tree of knowledge is conspicuously absent. Why is that? Could it be because Adam and Eve could have gone on living indefinitely without a knowledge of good and evil. Could it be that because Jesus Himself is the Tree of Life and He will be there, teaching us?

Knowledge isn't a bad thing. What matters is how you apply the knowledge that you have and Who you apply it for. I hope that this post may encourage you to examine your church, your family and your personal life in the broader context of the Scriptures.

Many people view their spiritual lives by taking bits and pieces of knowledge from the Bible, snippets of Scripture, ignoring the whole and just comparing it to the parts that they want. Lives can be bent around pieces of knowledge and allowed to get way out of spiritual whack because of that.

The Bible, taken as a whole however, will not allow us to ignore the fact that it is all about Jesus and that He is Who we are to be totally related to and that He is Who we, are to be all about.