Mankind from the beginning has had a problem with following God’s directions. The problem stems from man abusing one of the abilities that God gave to man. That is the ability to make a choice. God gave man this ability so man could choose to obey God or to reject Him. God wanted and wants man to follow Him, but He did not and will not make man follow Him.
In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were blessed to have all the things they needed to live.
God had given them the physical things they needed to survive and had given them spiritual directions. They chose to listen to the lies of Satan. Because of them failing to obey God they were cast from the garden, and sin and death entered the world.
Not all men chose to disobey God, but many did just that. In fact, the world got to the point that the Bible records that God repented that He had made man (Gen. 6:6). It is important to notice that in that same verse it is stated that “it grieved Him at His heart.”
God was disappointed in His creation. Man had not taken in account of the goodness of God and had begun to follow Satan.
One might think that man should have been more obedient knowing all that God had done for him. Physical and Spiritual blessings were given to man, but man had been tempted and overcome by Satan. “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). The temptations put forth by Satan are enticing to man, they are not from God. “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:13 – 15).
God only wants the best for man, but man must make the right choices.
When God saw man become disobedient in the Garden of Eden, God could have justly destroyed man, but instead God provided a way for man to be justified in God’s sight again. “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15). This was the promise of the Messiah. Later when God would be speaking to His servant Abraham God would promise that through the seed of Abraham all families of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 12:2).
God loves man. John recorded, For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
If man will simply follow God’s instructions, he can have eternal life. God’s word shows that under the Christian dispensation one must believe that Jesus is the Son of God, repent or turn from sin, confess that Jesus is God’s Son, be baptized (immersed ) in water, and then live a life faithful to God’s teachings. Some try and do what they want, just like others before them, but those desiring to please God will learn to do things God’s way.