Eve’s Legacy Unforgotten

Open your Bible and read today’s passage about Eve’s legacy in Genesis 2:20-3:24 or click here to read online.

When it comes to legacies, there is none greater than that of Eve – the mother of all humanity. She was made perfect in Christ’s image, as the flawless companion for Adam (Genesis 1:27). She was sinless, never felt pain, or want, or sadness. Never once felt ashamed of her body. She didn’t know what regret was. She lived the life that God designed us for: a life that was complete and filled with joy in him and nothing else.

That is, until she made the terrible decision to disobey God.

As a mother, Eve left a legacy that will never be forgotten by her descendants. It’s too big. Too impactful. Too painful.

She was and had everything we want: perfect body, amazing husband, lived in paradise, walked with God daily, didn’t have to constantly cook and clean (she just picked fruit right off the tree!), got to play with all of the wild animals without fear of being eaten…she lived the perfect life.

Her Legacy Includes Bad Choices (Just Like Ours)

We tend to get mad when we think of what she did, don’t we? We imagine our lives without the physical and emotional suffering that plagues us in so many ways and think, “man, if only we could go back in time and change what happened.” We’ve all blamed her. We’ve all thought, even if in secret, that we would never have made that same decision.

We’re all wrong.

Satan is the master of deceit. Yes, Eve made the decision 100% on her own and could have walked away without committing that first sin. But she didn’t. And we, just like Eve, have a choice and can walk away from our sin at any time. We don’t have to sin. We chose to sin knowing that our actions nailed Jesus to the cross. Satan knows how to make disobedience to God look bright, shiny, satisfying, and right. If any one of us thinks for a second that we would have made a different decision than the one Eve made, we are sorely mistaken. In fact, this in itself illuminates sin: self-righteousness. Satan, and our own weakness that wants to follow him, is the enemy here. Not Eve. Mommas, let’s drop to our knees right here and now and confess our sins that make us just like her. We disobey God daily.

We don’t know much more about Eve after she made the choice to sin. We know that she became a mother to many sons and daughters, three of which are named. We know that bringing them into the world brought physical pain formerly unimaginable (Genesis 3:16). Pain in childbirth is excruciating, to say the least and she was the very first to go through it. She had no baby books to read. No childbirth classes to know what to expect. No birthing balls. No medicine. No breathing techniques. No doctors, doulas, midwives, or nurses. The only person she had to help was Adam who also had no idea what was going on. We should feel deeply for her. I can’t imagine how frightening bringing the first child into the world was for her.

Her Legacy Includes The Loss of a Child

Open your Bible and read Genesis 3:1-16 or click here to read online.

Eve also experienced pain that no mother even wants to think about – the loss of a child. Unfortunately, she not only lost a child, he was murdered by her other child. I can only imagine the emotions she must have felt after going through something so horrendous. The Bible doesn’t tell her perspective of the story, but she likely felt unbelievable guilt. She went from living in paradise with God to living in a world where her son was murdered at the hand of his brother. Her decision resulted in punishment that extended beyond her life, but the life of her family and all of humanity.

Her Legacy Points To the Gospel

There is only one thing that can cover that kind of guilt – Jesus Christ and the sacrifice he made on the cross so that we could be reunited with God forever. What’s amazing is that God is omniscient and knew everything about Eve’s story and legacy before she was even created. And yet, he still wanted her, created her, and loves her.

Likewise, he knew everything about our story and legacy before he created us. And yet, here we are, wanted and loved by God. Same for our kids, grand kids, and great grand kids. This is the great message of the gospel: He knew that your legacy – filled with pain, mistakes, disobedience, failure, and selfishness – would require him to die an agonizing death. And he still let you write it. He still let you nail him to the cross. And still, he loves you.

Romans 5:6-8

“6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

John 3:16

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Read More Devotionals About Leaving Your Mom Legacy

This is a devotional except from Leaving Your Mom Legacy: A 30-Day Devotional On Reflecting Christ In Motherhood, available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. Order yours today! 

For more one day devotionals from Messy Tired Love, click here. To learn more about these devotionals for Christian moms, click here.

This devotional has been added to Flourishing Today.