NAKED AND NOT ASHAMED

Genesis 2:25 and the man and His wife were both naked and were not embarrassed or ashamed of each other’s presence (AMPL).

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od created Adam and placed Him in the Garden of Eden. He however could not find a suitable helper for him among the animals that God had created and therefore, God made Adam to fall asleep, removed a rib from Him and made Eve, a suitable helper for Him. In Verse 25 above, we are told that they were both naked and not ashamed. Well, God had created them with no clothes and needing none. They didn’t have to conceal any part of their bodies from the sight of each other. They were not ashamed, they were comfortable with themselves and each other. They were one flesh, united in all things and they shared al things! There was nothing shameful, nothing sinful about their nakedness. God would visit them, in their very naked nature, and they would have a fellowship and there was nothing wrong about it!

 

It was not until Adam and Eve sinned that their eyes were opened, they realized they were naked, they covered themselves with leaves and hid themselves from the presence of God! What had changed? They were guilt, they had done what the Lord had commanded them not to do! They had sinned! They couldn’t face their maker! They were naked and ashamed!

Now, God had created Adam and Eve in His own image, given them dominion over every other creation, power to rule and subdue the earth. God wanted to have a relationship with mankind. He wanted mankind to worship him in truth and spirit, and this couldn’t be done from a hide out. It couldn’t be done from a point of guilty and shame, it could only be done from a point of confidence and boldness. It is for the reason that He send his only son to die on the cross, for the redemption of mankind.

Hebrews 12:2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. The experience on the cross paid it all, Jesus was humiliated and endured the shame and embarrassment on the cross for us. He paid for any humiliation that would ever cross our lives. In exchange we have freedom, boldness and confidence in God our father. Jesus was stripped naked on the cross, and instead clothed with a garment of honor. Matthew 27:28 And they stripped off His clothes and put a scarlet robe (garment of dignity worn by roman offices of rank), we as well are clothed in Him and now we no longer should we walk in shame, we are covered, loved and treasured. 

Now that we are in Christ Jesus, we are no longer strangers in the family of God. We are adopted in the family of God. The desire of our father is that we approach Him not as a God who is far from us, not as God who doesn’t understand, but as a father who loves us, who knows us and understands our needs. It is in that capacity that God desires a fellowship and a relationship with Him.  At times our hearts are so broken and we may think that God does not understand! Not at all, Hebrews 4:15, For we do not have a high priest who is unable to understand and sympathize and have a shared feeling with our weaknesses and infirmities and liability to assaults of temptation, but one who has been tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sin.(AMP)

Well, all what God wants us is to appear, “naked” and broken before Him, allowing him in our hearts to reign, surrendering all to him, all our weaknesses, worries, fears even our thoughts. All God wants is that we may lay our hearts naked to Him, total surrender, withholding nothing, not ashamed, broken before the master, total surrender. It is this aspect that qualified David to be called a man after God’s heart. When we approach our father in heaven, he desires that we open up as much as possible, allow him to work on us, even when the process is painful and uncomfortable. He wants us to be real with Him, naked and not ashamed before Him. He wants a relationship with us, not a transaction! He desires true worship…are you grateful? Thank Him. Are you hurting? Open up to Him. Have you sinned? Repent …whichever situation you are in, just be true to Him…naked and not ashamed.

Psalms 51:6 Behold, you desire truth in the inner being; make me therefore to know wisdom in my inmost heart. Vs. 17 my sacrifice (the sacrifice acceptable) to God is a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart (broken down with sorrow for sin and humbly and thoroughly penitent) such, O god, You will not despise (AMP)

Child of God, all that God wants from you is honest and true worship…deep from the heart. Broken before the master. Naked but not ashamed.

Hold on!

Life is a journey and a journey has many phases. The terrain is not the same throughout the journey, it differs from one place to another. There are mountains to be climbed, valleys to go down through and also level land. For a driver, the gears are not the same throughout and hence are changed from time to time depending on the condition of the road.🔻

In our spiritual journey, the walk of faith, we also have our mountains, valleys and plateaus to cover.  There are times we walk in abundance of grace and there are times that things are hard and seemingly not working at all. There are times the faith is challenged by circumstances and may also land us in despair. Have you ever trusted something from God so badly? Something that you believed that the faithful God was able to do it but again, seemingly, things were not working in your favor? May it is a Job you desperately needed? A child? A partner? Some property you needed to acquire? Financial breakthrough? Sickness? Whatever it was…that is what I am asking about. Worse, have you ever received humiliation in your time of waiting and desperation and ridicule? How did you feel? What did you do? (I won’t ask if you ever humiliated someone in their low moment because you may not have an idea of how the felt….)

Well, it’s during one such moments I was drawn to attention to the story of Hannah. Hannah was the wife of Elkanah, and a co wife to Peninnah. We are told that Peninnah had children but for Hannah she didn't , for The Lord had shut her womb!  1^st Samuel 1: “2 And He had two wives, the name of one was Hannah and the name of the other was Peninnah: and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children” Vs. 6 “And her adversary also provoked her sore to make her fret, because God has shut her womb” . Well, that must have been a very tough journey for Hannah, first your husband gets another wife and then you have no child and she uses that very reason to look down upon you. I do not want to imagine the pain, and the bitterness she had to go through. He husband loved her and couldn’t understand why she would even refuse to eat. You see, when you are going through a hard time, people including those around you can’t understand. Mum, neighbors will not understand why you keep praying for your adult son stuck in drugs, according to them, He’s aged enough to bear the consequences of his decisions. According to people, you already doing well and need no promotion they can’t understand. People won’t understand why weep for a baby while another just needs a life partner…yes…no matter how close they are…they may not understand.

As custom, they used to go to Shiloh annually to offer sacrifices. You know during those days, only the high priest would enter the holy of hollies and offer the sacrifices to God…once a year. So year after another, Elkanah and his family would go to Shiloh…year after another, Hannah would go to Shiloh, her only cry being the desire to have a baby. After years of sorrow and heavy heart, this particular year she goes to Shiloh, but this time round, the tactic has changed, she prays and prays the pain is deep in her heart, only her lips moving. You know there are times the mouth cannot utter what is the heart has …you only left with an option of pouring out your heart out to your maker at the secrecy of your room. Even in this circumstance, she was misunderstood by the priest, mistaken for a drunk woman. You see when you are tired of your circumstances and your heart speaks a language not understandable by men, they will think you are crazy. Child of God, do not seek to be understood by men, seek to be understood by your maker. Hold on, do not give up. Hannah would have given up in year one or year two. Imagine waiting for a whole year to go to place of worship and with the same prayer item? Year in year out the prayer line hasn’t changed. Child of God, do not give up…keep trusting in God, do not give up, tarry in his presence, and seek the Lord. It doesn’t matter how long it tarries, believe in God, if it pleases Him, it shall come to pass.

The Lord remembered Hannah and that same period, she became expectant. Child of God, many have gone through the same route. Abraham was in the same route, trusting God for a son…having been promised to be father of nations…….at some point, he felt compelled to “ help” God fulfill His promise by getting a child through the maid, Hagar. But then, that was not the will of God. The plan of God was to make him father of nations through his own wife Sarah. Child of God, God ways are not our ways. May be God spoke to you over something, and according to your timing, The Lord has delayed and you are at the verge of giving up…..Do not Give up because the Lord will do it at His time, to the fame and Glory of His name and shame of your enemies.

The world around you will always give you reasons to give up…remember Lazarus, dead and buried even when the Lord had said that the sickness does not lead to death? Well But on the fourth day…. The Lord raised Him from the dead. Child of God, weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning.

You see, faith is not easy, it wasn’t made to be so. Believing what you don’t see, what you can only see through the eyes of the spirit, but aheem…do not give up. The Lord who saved you is able to fulfill His promise over your life. Soon it will be manifested in the physical. Keep building your relationship with God, it is through those experiences when our faith is shaken that we get to build stronger trust in God. It is also those times that we can easily lose grips of the faith, this is because we are human. Whatever you are going through, it is not a surprise to God. We are told that the Lord shut her womb! May be the Lord has shut your womb, but He will remember you do not give up.

Paul says in 2^nd Timothy 1: 11 & 12 and of this gospel, I was appointed a herald, an apostle and a teacher. That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know whom I have believed…. NLT …For I know the one in whom I trust…..

This is my prayer and desire…that as Children of God, we will not lose trust on the one we have believed. The one, we have trusted in…the one who saved us…irrespective of our situations, circumstances and realities of life…It is not easy but the grace is sufficient.

Tarry! Do not Give up!….Hold on!