"For God knows that when you eat of it..." The devil wants us to doubt that God loves us

Genesis 3:5

"For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

"You will not surely die," Satan says to Eve. "For God knows that when you eat of it..." This is a direct attack by the devil on the character of God. Satan tries to make Eve believe that God is withholding some vital piece of information from her--that for some reason God isn't telling her the whole story and he's hiding something from her. Satan still attacks us like this today.

When this strategy works, it has the effect of planting doubt in our hearts regarding God's love for us. At the core of it, our faith is a belief in the goodness and in the love of God for us. However, when this belief is shaken, then our whole world starts to crumble, and we become vulnerable to sin.

We must not allow the devil to corrupt our understanding of who God is. We must not allow him to steal from our minds the things that we know to be true about God. In regards to God's love the Apostle John says, "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!" (1 John 3:1) Of this we can be certain: God loves us. He loves us because the Bible tells us he does, and because each of us has experienced his love in our lives in a very personal way.