Who Told You That?
“And he said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?’” — Genesis 3:11, NIV
Yesterday, I mentioned that one of the sections in the Bible that is the most heartbreaking to me is found in Genesis 3, when God is walking in the Garden, calling for his dear friends. Today, I want to focus on a different portion of that encounter and encourage us all to ask ourselves the same question God asked Adam and Eve:
Who told you that?
If we truly examine our lives and beliefs, I think we will all find that most of what we believe about ourselves is something God never said. We convince ourselves that we are inadequate, unworthy, unloved, incapable, forgotten, behind, or less valuable than others. We allow fear, guilt, shame, condemnation, insecurity, and doubt to shape the way we see ourselves, often without ever questioning where those thoughts originated from. Or, on the flip side, we allow our pride to overtake our hearts and minds, creating a falsely inflated sense of ourselves. Sometimes, we become so accustomed to believing the lies that we mistake them for the truth—we no longer can separate who we actually are from who we believe we are.
But who told us those lies? More importantly, was it God?
Let’s go back to the Garden.
“Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (Genesis 2:25, NIV) (the last verse in chapter 2).
Not sure about you, but being naked is not exactly a condition I am comfortable being in front of other people—I reach for the nearest covering the second I step out of the shower or hear someone coming. It is a vulnerable position! Adam and Eve were completely uncovered, exposed in the most literal sense, and yet there was absolutely nothing about their unclothed condition that made them feel embarrassed, insecure, or ashamed. They were exactly as God intended them to be, living in perfect fellowship with him and one another, with no reason to hide. They were naked the whole time! And they were perfectly content that way! No fig leaves, no shrubbery, no animal skins, no desperate attempt to cover themselves with whatever they could find.
So what changed? We flip the page, and the first thing we see is that darn serpent, “more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD GOD had made” (Genesis 3:1, NIV). Look at just how crafty he begins his conversation with Eve:
“He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say…?’” (Genesis 3:1, NIV)(the first verse in chapter 3).
Did God really say?
Before Adam and Eve ever ate the forbidden fruit, the serpent began by sneakily encouraging them to question what God had already told them. He challenged the truth of God’s words, distorted his intentions, and convinced them that God had withheld something they actually needed—and they listened.
“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves” (Genesis 3:7, NIV).
After eating the fruit, they were not just suddenly aware of their nakedness (obviously they knew they were that way the whole time); they were ashamed of their nakedness. Suddenly, something that had never bothered them before became a source of shame. They realized their nakedness—they felt the vulnerability, the discomfort, the barenness, and maybe even the “cool of the day” a little extra… They sewed (not sure where they learned to sew or what they used, but we will ignore that for now) fig leaves together to cover themselves, and when they heard the Lord walking in the Garden, they hid from him among the trees.
Can you imagine? The same God who lovingly formed them, literally breathed life into them, and placed them in a beautiful Garden to enjoy fellowship with him was now the One they were trying to avoid. They had become ashamed of the way they stood before their Creator.
“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 3:9-10, NIV).
God calls out to his friends, his beloved ones, just wanting them to come and walk with him in his creation. But they are hiding—creating distance in their relationship with God. They are afraid to present themselves before a perfect God because they are now aware of their imperfection and sin.
God’s response?
“Who told you that you were naked?” (Genesis 3:11, NIV) (as if he didn’t know).
I don’t know exactly how God spoke those words. Scripture doesn’t tell us whether his voice was filled with righteous anger, sorrow, some combination of the two, or something else entirely. But I cannot help imagining the heartbreak of our Creator in that moment. I picture the voice of a loving Father, perhaps cracking with sorrow as he asks his beloved creation a question he already knows the answer to:
Who told you that you were naked?
He knew they had disobeyed him. He knew sin had entered the world and that the perfect fellowship they had enjoyed was now broken. He also knew the people he created to live freely in his presence were suddenly afraid to be seen by him. He knew they were now ridden with shame, fear, guilt, confusion, separation, anxiety, and every other thing that comes with the imperfection sin brought. He never wanted that for them—for us.
I think about how heartbreaking it must be for a parent to hear their child repeat something cruel that someone else has told them. To hear a child who has always been beautiful, precious, and deeply loved suddenly question their worth because another person convinced them to. The parent’s love never changed, and neither did the child’s value—but somehow the child began to believe something different, and their perception changed.
Now, Adam and Eve’s situation was more than a misunderstanding about their identity. They had genuinely sinned, and their disobedience would carry real consequences. But something else changed after they listened to the serpent: their perception of themselves. They had always been naked—What changed was how they viewed and understood their nakedness.
Before sin, their nakedness was simply part of the way God created them—no shame attached. But after listening to a voice that contradicted God’s instruction, they began to experience fear, shame, and the desire to hide.
How often do we do the same thing? How often do we let other people's words, the world's expectations, comparisons, the enemy's accusations, or even our own false thoughts convince us of something God never said about us? We begin to believe we are not good enough, that our past mistakes define us, that we are too broken for God to use, that we need to become more deserving of his love, or a thousand other lies.
Some lies are obvious, but others are subtle enough that we hardly notice how deeply they affect us. We may even build our lives around them, making decisions out of fear, withdrawing from relationships, avoiding opportunities, seeking things of the world, or hiding parts of ourselves because we have accepted something as truth that never came from God.
But dear friends, Scripture tells us exactly who we are in him. Here is a little reminder of what God actually says about you:
You are a beloved child of God. “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1, NIV).
You are intentionally created. “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14, NIV).
You are known by God. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5, NIV).
You are chosen. “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4, NIV).
You are God’s handiwork. “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works” (Ephesians 2:10, NIV).
You are deeply loved. Nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39, NIV).
You are redeemed and belong to God. “I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine” (Isaiah 43:1, NIV).
You are a new creation in Christ. “The new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NIV).
You are no longer condemned. “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1, NIV).
You are not what the world says you should be. You are not what your fears, failures, insecurities, pride, circumstances, or doubts have convinced you you are. This is what God says about you—and his Word has far more authority to define you than any other voice.
Of course, I know from personal experience that it is not always as simple as identifying a lie and immediately feeling different. Some lies and beliefs are so deeply rooted after years of painful experiences, difficult relationships, or circumstances that leave lasting wounds that we really have to dig to eradicate them. We may know what Scripture says about us and still struggle to believe it in our hearts. This is why we need to be more intentional about the voices we listen to and the thoughts we let shape how we see ourselves.
When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11), he fought back with the ultimate weapon—the truth of God’s Word. Each time Satan tried to deceive or tempt him (bold choice, bro), Jesus responded with Scripture. He didn’t entertain the lies, try to reason with them, or let them shape what he believed. He answered with what God had already said.
Friends, we cannot recognize a lie if we do not know the truth.
If we aren’t familiar with what God has said in his Word, how will we recognize when something we hear, or even something we tell ourselves, contradicts it? Romans 12:2 tells us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Part of that renewal means learning to pause when a thought or belief takes root (or pops up unexpectedly) and ask ourselves a simple question: Who told you that?
Just because something feels true, someone else said it, or we have believed it for years does not mean it aligns with what God has said. We must examine those thoughts in light of Scripture, identify what contradicts his truth, and intentionally replace those lies with the truths of his Word.
And one last detail from the Garden: God came looking for them. He already knew what had happened. He knew they sinned; he knew they were hiding. Yet he still called out to them—his beloved. Through Jesus Christ, we see how far God would go to restore the fellowship broken that day. The same God Adam and Eve hid from has made a way for us to draw near to him again.
I don’t know what lies you are believing today. I don’t know what someone has told you about yourself, what insecurities have taken root, or what accusations you have rehearsed in your own mind for years. But I do know that God’s Word gives us something far more trustworthy. We don’t have to accept every thought or accusation as truth. We can bring those things before the Lord and allow his Word to challenge what we have come to believe.
The next time a voice tells you something about who you are, don’t be so quick to believe it. Stop and ask yourself the very question God asked in the Garden:
Who told you that?
bytaylormcgee
