Naked Before God

"Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, 'Where are you?' He answered, 'I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.'"
Genesis 3:8-10

When Solomon said, "There is nothing new under the sun," he surely could have been thinking about things like this. People have been hiding from God since the beginning of time. Adam and Eve were the first. They enjoyed a relationship with God that has not been possible since. God actually came into the garden regularly and spent time with his creations. They were the last to have this kind of open relationship with the creator. Although there were times later when men saw God, it was much different, and much less frequent.
    Sin got in the way of this perfect relationship. Although Adam and Eve had never even heard the word, 'naked' before, they became aware because the enemy told them. This same process still happens today. The devil loves to take things that God created and pervert them. There was no need for clothing, because God had made Adam and Eve perfectly. Only after the enemy successfully introduced sin, did they see their nakedness. To further complicate the matter, they hid themselves from God.
    Now, we live in a world that is inundated with sin. We are no strangers to sin ourselves. Since the days of Adam and Eve, every person has had to deal with it. We have been given grace in such full measure that we have regained righteous relationship with God. If you have given your life to Christ, you have experienced that grace. So the only thing left to conquer is the propensity to hide from God. When we sin, somehow we think that we must hide from him. We are under the delusion that God won't notice. We think that the sin will go away if we just hide it and forget about it. But sin will not go away, and we cannot hide it from God.
    If we believe in God and his amazing grace, we must know that rather than hide our sin, we must lay it at the foot of the cross of Christ. God loves us and he knows that we struggle with sin. So let's be honest about it with God. He already knows about it anyway, so why hide it? I think the first act of recorded grace happened as a result of Adam and Eve's sin. They tried to cover themselves, but it did not work. So God made clothes for them. The damage of sin had been done, but God, in his grace clothed them. Today, we can be clothed with the righteousness of Christ. All we have to do is be honest with God, give him our sin, and receive his grace and forgiveness. If we try to cover it up ourselves we will fail. This is the time to be naked before God.