workin' for the weekend

Check this out.

GOD creates everything...including mankind, His greatest creation.

Everything is perfect...PERFECT (i.e. "very good" cf. Gen 1.31).

Satan comes along and messes things up, and GOD's greatest creation falls.

::GOD PRESENT TO MAN::
GOD rebukes the man telling him, "By the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken..." (Gen 3.19 ESV). In other words man is forced to work extra hard to survive because GOD had met every provision in the Garden before the fall. Man's work in the Garden was joyful and enjoyed in the presence of GOD. But, since man fell in "knowing" sin, access to GOD's provisions were going to be more work-intensive.

Another perspective.

::MAN PRESENT TO GOD::
Man's fall from GOD was a result of man acquiring sin, and, thus, GOD could not be intimate with man (otherwise Holy GOD would "know" sin and cease to be GOD). Without that intimacy man's knowing GOD becomes more difficult—man has to "work" to be intimate with GOD (i.e. praying, animal sacraments, multiple rules/guidelines). Conjunctively, man has to labor in presenting GOD to others.

Think of it this way…introducing GOD to someone new in the Garden would've been like introducing a newborn baby to air. Now, we have

Maybe that's why church staff has to work so hard to create a weekly environment wherein GOD is invited so that others can meet Him. There are SO many variables and aesthetic elements that are pieced together to achieve this ambiance, and we sometimes work ourselves to the bone to get it done in hopes that people will disconnect from their world and breathe the "newborn" air of GOD omni-present. In some ways we have to bring GOD to the people. Come to think of it…if man hadn’t fallen, the Church wouldn’t even exist. Huh…