What are we listening to?

I recently purchased this book called Women of the Word which was recommended to me by a friend.  It's a year long devotional of 52 women in the Bible.  I'm on week one and God is already using it to teach me. 

EVE

WHAT GOD SAID: You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.

WHAT EVE TOLD THE ENEMY GOD SAID: We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, "You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die."

WHAT THE ENEMY TOLD EVE: You will not certainly die, for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

First -  Eve added to God's word.

Second - so did the enemy.

Seeing this leads me to ask two questions:

1. How often do I add to God's word based off of what I think?

2. How often does the enemy speak extra into my life and add a narrative that has nothing to do with what God has told me in His Word?

Both interpreted God's word for their own.

Both added to what God said.

How often do I listen to what I think or, probably more often, how often do I listen to the enemy's interpretation of God's word?

The enemy distorted the truth and placed lies into Eve's mind.  He undermined God's Word by giving a different narrative that was never meant to be placed into Eve's mind. He gave Eve an idea of what God might really be thinking. (As if he would know!)

Eve positioned herself to fall.  Eve gave ear to the enemy. Eve participated in dialogue with the enemy of her soul.

And this led to her deception.

I pray to never be deceived. 

But then I think, how often have I believed things about myself that the enemy whispered to me or used others to tell me something contrary to what God says about me?

I must get back into the Word.  I must stand on what He has told me. I must know who He is and have a relationship with Him that is deeper than just a lay me down prayer at night.

If I do this, then I'll never visit the territory of the "tree" He's forbidden me to eat from. I'll never give ear to the enemy's voice. I'll never participate in the dialogue that the enemy wants to begin in my life.

I will cut it off at the root and live in the freedom and liberty of who I am in God's eyes.

Forgiven. Pure. Holy.

A daughter of the King!