“Who is making that noise?!” Mom asked.

All three of us denied, “It isn’t me!”

It isn’t me.

Let me state that from a different direction and in the form of a question: Am I really me? Am I my own person?

Western society touts the idea of being yourself, finding your own truth, living for you, being your own man or woman (today that include which ever gender you think you want to be – but that is another post). When I ask, “Am I my own person?” or “Are you your own person?” out individualistic society takes pride in answering, “Yes!”

But should we be?

Go with me back to the Garden of Eden. The serpent convinced Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil telling them, “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Gen 3:5)

“You will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

The word “knowing” can carry the idea of being able to determine or choose what is good and evil. This might be the case when you consider the context of the phrase and note that they will be like God. God is the source of morality, what is good and evil – He determines it. Satan could be saying, “You get to choose what you will do and if it is right or wrong. You get to be your own person, your own god.”

Oh the problems that come from man determining his own morality!

God offers many warnings:

• “I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.” Jeremiah 10:23
• “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” Proverbs 14:12; 16:25
• “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” Romans 3:10-12

When we set ourselves up as the ultimate moral authority, the one(s) who determine what is right and what is wrong, we set ourselves in the place of God.

May I remind you of what Paul says, ” . . . . You are not your own.” (1 Corinthians 6:19).

-Scott