In the beginning Adam and Eve had a unhindered relationship with God. They had no barriers between them and God or between them and each other. It's the way we seem to be born longing for our relationships to be, whether we realize it or not. Then it all went wrong, and the next thing that you know they're covering themselves with fig leaves and hiding in the bushes from God. Now the truth was that God knew what had happened and where they were. He even knew the How and Why better than they did. But He called for them to come to Him and asked them what happened so that they would have to look and acknowledge for themselves.
And so the years of human existence have come and gone, and even today, thousands of years later we haven't learned any better. We still hide parts of our hearts and minds and lives from God, and when we do respond to His call and go into His presence we clothe ourselves to hide our sin and shame. It doesn't work. Fig leaves rip, tear and itch. They just make a lousy covering. Only God can cover us in His righteousness and make us acceptable before Him. But the thing is that the covering that God provides is custom made to fit us perfectly. It doesn't fit right when we try to put it on over our fig leaves. We have to strip away our own efforts to cover ourselves and stand naked before the One who already sees us as we are anyway. When we stand naked before God, no longer hiding but willing to let Him have us, dirty and wretched as we are, we discover that He clothes us in His grace and righteousness. We went to Him dirty and stand before Him clean. But we have to let go of the filthy fig leaves that we trued to clothe ourselves with and get naked before God before we can put on the grace suit that He made.
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