Youth Group Devotionals

Friday, we ended with Adam giving the woman the name Eve and with the reminder that their failure did not erase who they were.The next thing God does is easy to overlook.Adam and Eve had tried to cover themselves with leaves. They knew something had changed, they felt ashamed, and they tried to fix the problem themselves.But their covering was not enough.So, God made clothing for them.Genesis does not tell us what kind of animal the clothing came from or describe its death. But clothing made from animal skins means an animal’s life had to be taken.This is the first time in Scripture that something dies to cover human shame.Adam and Eve used leaves.God provided something better.Their leaves represent what we still try to do with our own sin and shame. We hide, make excuses, blame someone else, or try to do enough good things to make up for what we have done.We try to create our own covering.But leaves could not repair Adam and Eve’s relationship with God. They could not undo their sin or remove their shame.Something else had to provide the covering.This becomes an early picture of something we will see throughout Scripture.Later, animals will be sacrificed at the tabernacle and Temple as the people seek forgiveness and restoration with God. Those sacrifices will have to be repeated again and again.Another animal.Another sacrifice.Another reminder that sin brings death and that humanity cannot cover itself.All this points forward to Jesus.When Jesus dies on the cross, He does not bring another animal to be sacrificed. Unlike the sacrifices that had to be repeated, He is the ultimate sacrifice for eternity.From the garden to the Temple to the cross, God provides the covering for our sin and shame that we cannot provide ourselves.

After the fall, something interesting happens.Up to this point, Genesis keeps referring to “the man” and “the woman.” But in Genesis 3:20, Adam gives the woman a name:Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.Her name is now connected to what she will do.And that feels very familiar to the way we still see people today.We tend to identify people by what they do.She’s an athlete.He’s the smart kid.She’s the funny one.He’s the pastor.She’s the successful one.He’s the screw-up.We put labels on people based on their job, reputation, talents, failures, or what they can produce.But that is not how God first introduces humanity.Before Adam or Eve had accomplished anything, before they had a job title, before they had succeeded or failed, God had already said they were made in His image.Their value came from who they were, not what they did.That is an important difference.We usually look at each other from the outside in. We see what someone does, what they are good at, what they have messed up, or what they can offer us.God sees us from the inside out.He sees a person made in His image.And this matters even more after Genesis 3, because now Adam and Eve have failed in a pretty spectacular way. But God does not stop seeing them as His creation. He still comes looking for them. He still speaks to them. He still cares for them.Their failure changes a lot, but it does not erase who they are.That is something we need to remember about ourselves and about other people.What you do matters, but it is not the deepest truth about who you are.God sees you as more than your grades, your sport, your job, your popularity, your mistakes, or your success.And if God sees people that way, we should try to see each other that way too.

In Genesis 3, we still see “the man” and “the woman.” The woman has not even been given the name Eve yet. At this point, the story is still focused more on who they are in relation to God and each other than on their individual names.God has created a place for them to live with Him in harmony. He has given them everything they need, along with one boundary.Then the serpent enters the story and asks one question:Can you really trust God?The serpent does not start by telling them to completely reject God. He starts by making them question the story God has given them.Did God really say that?Is God holding something back from you?Wouldn’t life be better if you decided for yourself what is good?We hear the phrase “trust the process” all the time. Genesis 3 is almost like God saying, “Trust the story.”Trust that I created you.Trust that I know what is good.Trust that the boundaries I have given you are there for a reason.Trust that you do not have to understand everything in order to trust Me.But the man and woman decide they do not trust the story anymore. They believe they can write a better one for themselves.And that is really what sin looks like throughout Scripture.It is not always someone saying, “I do not believe in God.”A lot of the time it is someone saying, “I know what God said, but I think my way will work better.”Adam and the woman do this in the garden. Israel will do this over and over again in the wilderness. Kings will do the same later in the Old Testament. The disciples will struggle with it. And we still do as well.God says one thing, but we look at our circumstances and think:I know, but what if God is wrong about this?What if His way doesn't work for me?What if I need to take control myself?Genesis 3 shows us where that leads.The harmony God created begins to break. The man and woman hide from God. They blame each other. Their relationship with God, with each other, and with creation becomes fractured.They wanted control of the story, but instead they broke the world they had been given.And that becomes one of the major themes of the entire Bible:Will God’s people trust the story He is writing, or will they try to write their own?

In Genesis 2, God says something for the first time that is not good:“It is not good for the man to be alone.”So God creates woman.The Hebrew language used here gives us a picture that is stronger than simply saying, “Adam needed some help.” Man and woman are created as two corresponding parts—different, but designed to fit together.Look at the two logs leaning against each other at the top of this devotional.They are different pieces, but they support each other. Take either one away and the other falls.That is a picture of what God is doing with man and woman.They are not identical. They are not supposed to be. They bring different perspectives, strengths, and characteristics to the relationship.God designed them to be counterparts—two people who correspond to one another and together reflect something that neither one reflects completely on their own.Genesis says, “Male and female he created them.”.Both are made in the image of God. Neither is presented as less valuable or less important.This devotional happens to fall on my wedding anniversary, so I get a pretty good reminder of this in real life. My wife and I are not the same person, and that is a good thing. We see things differently, we have different strengths, and there are plenty of times when one of us brings something the other does not.Marriage has taught me that being different is not the same as being divided. At its best, those differences help us support each other and become stronger together.And remember what God is showing Israel through this story. They have just come out of Egypt, where Pharaoh decided who had value, who had power, and whose life mattered.Genesis gives them a completely different picture.Your value does not come from Pharaoh.It does not come from how much work you can produce.It does not come from whether you are male or female.Your value comes from the fact that God created you in His image.And from the very beginning, God created people not to live alone, but to live in relationship—with Him and with each other.

Genesis 2 zooms in from the creation of the whole world to the creation of man and woman and the Garden of Eden.One interesting thing about this story is that Genesis is not the only ancient writing that talks about things like a special garden, a tree connected with life, rivers, humanity being formed from the earth, or humans losing access to immortality. Similar ideas show up in other ancient Near Eastern stories written by cultures around Israel.Some people refer to this as historical cultural memory. The idea is that different ancient cultures may have preserved memories of the same distant past, even though those memories were told differently over generations.That does not mean all these stories are saying the same thing. In fact, what makes Genesis important is how different its explanation is.The people around Israel had stories involving many gods competing with one another, humans being created to serve the gods, and people desperately searching for immortality.Genesis says something very different.There is one God.He intentionally creates humanity.He gives people life, purpose, relationship, and a place with Him.When we read Genesis, we must remember that the Bible is not really trying to answer every scientific question we might ask today about how God created everything or exactly when every event happened.Genesis is much more interested in telling us who did it and why.Who created us?God did.Why are we here?Because He wanted us here, created us in His image, and made us to live in relationship with Him.That is what the Garden of Eden is showing us. Humanity begins in a place where God provides everything they need and where people live in relationship with God, with each other, and with creation the way it was intended to be.And that makes what happens next in Genesis 3 so important, because we are about to see how that “very good” world becomes the broken world that Israel, and ourselves, experience.