Genesis 4:6-7 (NIV): Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”
When Cain’s offering was rejected, while his brother, Abel’s, was accepted, anger began to boil in his heart. The core issue was very simple: Abel had offered his sacrifice according to God’s instructions, and with a submissive heart that sought communion with God above all else. Cain, on the other hand, wanted to be accepted on his own terms. He brought a sacrifice based on what HE had decided to give instead of basing it on God’s instructions. So naturally, his offering was refused. It was principally a matter of the heart: Abel’s heart was soft, submissive, and obedient; Cain’s was hard, rebellious, and striving for mastery, even of God.
When God saw the hatred begin to boil in Cain’s heart, hatred of Him for refusing the sacrifice, and irrational hatred against Abel because his sacrifice was accepted, He intervened. He laid out a clear choice to Cain: the way of life, or the way of death. The way of life was to lay down his anger and his hatred, surrendering his will and his agenda to God, and offering the sacrifice of obedience and submission. The way of death was to surrender to his anger, to submit his heart to the sin of hatred, and to let it lead him to actions that would ultimately separate him from all that he held dear; to put him and his descendants on a trajectory away from fellowship with God.
The key was, Cain was in a place where he could choose whichever path he wanted. He was not powerless or helpless in the face of this anger, or of the temptation to let it fester into hatred. Sin was indeed crouching at the door wanting to master him. But he was a human being, not an animal. And, as a human being, he retained the divine prerogative of choosing his response to the situation. If he had let his heart be soft toward God, God would have given him all of the power that he needed to master the sin that was trying to trip him up. But instead, he chose to harden his heart against God and His words. And, as a consequence, anger turned to hatred, and hatred gave birth to murder. And from there, the whole trajectory of humanity was changed.
People today still retain that divine prerogative: the ability to choose how we will respond to the situations that arise and to the temptations that crop up. If we choose to let our hearts be soft toward God and His words, He will give us all the power that we need to master the sins crouching at our door, enabling us to master the evil that is striving to master us. But if we choose to harden our hearts against God and His words, then sin will master us, and the whole trajectory of our lives will be put on the path leading to death.
Father, help us to choose right. Help us to keep soft hearts before You, to desire Your love and Your acceptance more than anything else. Help us to never believe that we must give in to sin; that we have no choice. Instead, help us to keep our hearts always turned toward You, so that we can receive Your power to be completely victorious in every situation. Amen.