Good and Evil

"If you love me, you will obey what I command.

John 14:15

Carla: Bambi, what's the deal with all you do around here...the laundry and all that?

JD: I never really thought about it. I guess when you love someone you don't mind doing the things that will make them happy.

Scrubs, The TV show

Most of us were taught at an early age to differentiate between right and wrong. Parents, teachers, and pastors alike ground into us the very thing that severed us from God that one day so long ago; the knowledge of good and evil.

Have you ever thought about that? Notice the verbage...it's not only the tree of the knowledge of evil that God asks Adam and Eve to steer clear of. It's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What's so wrong with us knowing good? The answer is... everything!

You see, before the fall we were connected to God and He to us. Therefore we instinctively did what was good because we were connected with the Source of all Good. When we ate of the tree, we lost that connection. Or, you could say it another way, we began to think we knew better, that we could do this alone.

Have you ever tried to kick a bad habit? Haven't you noticed that no matter how hard you try, you inevitably end up relapsing. I know I have. I've said to myself, "I won't do this," and then inevitably, as Paul said, I do the thing I do not want to do. The problem with the Knowledge of Good and Evil is it's impossible to be good on our own. To do what's right we have to be fixed, and to do what's good we have to be intimately connected to the source of all that is Good.

I think that's exactly what Jesus was saying in the passage above. If we love Him, or we can say if we are connected intimately to Him, we will do what He asks of us. It will not be about right or wrong. It will not be in our own strength, and it will not be about legalism. It will be because of a connection, an intimate connection to the Lover of our Souls, a connection to Life.