God told Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit or they would die.

The serpent said eat the fruit! It’s delicious! God’s a liar, you won’t die.

Eve examined the fruit. Thought it looked good and decided to eat.

Adam listened to Eve and ate the fruit.

Neither Adam or Eve took responsibility for their decisions to disobey God and blamed the serpent.

God said, I told you not to eat the fruit! Now you are going to die! So here’s the deal I will give you another chance. I will pay the penalty and die in your place. But you have to believe Me when I tell you not to eat the fruit.

God’s Grace = He forgives our sins, pays the penalty for our disobedience even though we don’t deserve it and allows us to escape our fate.

Faith = We believe Him when He says, “Don’t eat the fruit!” Even if the fruit like looks delicious.

How I have experienced God’s Grace in my life is this way: because I ate a lot of fruit (sin) and shared my sin with others, my life was filled with poisoned dead relationships.

It has only been through the power of belief in His Word and by His Grace and mercy He gave me understanding that these relationships have been healed and brought back to life.

In doing what Jesus teaches (forgiving, kind, self denying) in my interactions with the people in my life instead of doing what I learned from the world about how to act (accusing, blaming, self preservation) As long as I stay in His Word in all I say and do, I receive His blessing of Peace.

Anytime I start to fall off the narrow path and fall back into old habits I immediately experience a loss of peace and have to pray for forgiveness and guidance and study the Word in order to get back on track. I call it my Holy Spirit GPS.