"Check This Out"

 "And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also?" (John 9:40 KJV)

  "You who call yourselves Jews are relying on God's law, and you boast about your special relationship with him. You know what he wants; you know what is right because you have been taught his law. You are convinced that you are a guide for the blind and a light for people who are lost in darkness. You think you can instruct the ignorant and teach children the ways of God. For you are certain that God's law gives you complete knowledge and truth." (Romans 2:17-20 NLT)

 There is another thing about that east and west thing, something that is very much like the difference between light and darkness, or the contrast between good and evil. As it is, God's law does not really show us how to be right; even as the first and only command God gave to Adam, which did not instruct Adam how to resist eating of that tree, but just told him what not to do. 

 We are so full of ourselves; it is pretty much impossible not to sin! But the good news is, God knows what we are, but He still loves us! He just wants us to realize what we are and count on Him to make us right! If we know that we are blind and cannot see, it is only God that can give us sight and ability to see; we are no use to ourselves and helpless without God. 

 Somewhere along the way, either Adam told Eve, or Eve determined on her own, that the tree was not only forbidden to eat, but that it should not even be touched. Odd, but the more you think about what not to do, sometimes, it makes it even harder to resist doing what you should not do...

"So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God. When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death. But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit." (Romans 7:4-6 NLT)