What comes to mind when you think of standards? Does the word standard have a positive or negative connotation when you hear it? Are you restrained or restricted by your standards? The way that you would answer these questions is solely dependent on how you view the role that your standards play in your life. Are you living life according to Gods standards or are you allowing your standards to be formed relative to how you feel, what circumstance you are in or by what popular culture would dictate.
We live in a culture that has become so infatuated with the idea of freedom that to an extent the true meaning has become obscure, faint, and incomplete; stretching the borders of what is morally acceptable behavior in the sight of God. Freedom is defined as exemption from external control and the power to determine action without restraint. This definition seems harmless but without the proper standards that are absolute and true freedom is not created, instead a misaligned concept of reality with the result being confusion and chaos.
Freedom does not bring restriction, but creates an environment in which restraint is enacted and then the essence of freedom can be experienced and enjoyed to its fullest. Freedom was not man’s idea, but God’s. God’s intention for us is that we would live life abundantly.
Genesis 2:16-17, And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
God in the garden gave Adam freedom. Adam could eat from every tree in the garden that he wanted to include the tree of knowledge of good and evil. However, his choice would not come without consequence. Larry Stocksill says that “Choices without consequences bring confusion.” God was clear in His instruction to Adam—there could be no confusion as to what would happen (the consequence) when Adam would eat from the tree—that God commanded him to have restraint from.
Restriction or Restraint? Which would you use to best describe this scenario in the Garden of Eden in application to your life? Restraint would mean that you are allowing your life to be governed by standards—standards set by God that are absolute and true—allowing the freedom to enjoy all that God has and created especially for you (the rest of the Garden). Restriction, however, would mean that all of the freedom that God has given and all that He has created especially for you is not good enough and that you desire what you want (the tree of knowledge of good and evil).
