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We’ve probably asked God at some point, “What’s Your will for my life?” Maybe we wanted to know God’s will regarding what we should study in school, the kind of job we should have, or who we should marry.
It’s human nature to be intensely focused on our own affairs and not on God’s. After all, since God is all-powerful and divine, what could He want or need?
God created the heavens, the earth, and all mankind. Why? The Bible gives us the answer in Revelation 4:11:
“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power, for You have created all things, and because of Your will they were, and were created.”
This verse clearly tells us that God created everything for His will. When we compare our personal affairs to God’s creation of the heavens, the earth, and all humanity, we have to conclude that God’s will must be something much more significant than merely where we should go to school or what job we should have.
So now that we know all things were created for God’s will, what is God’s will?
First, we have to realize that God is very purposeful. The idea that God would do something in an aimless way, without a purpose, doesn’t make sense. Even we wouldn’t spend our time and effort to construct something with no reason or purpose in mind.
Let’s look at Ephesians 1:5 and 9, paying attention to some key words in these verses:
“Predestinating us unto sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.”
“Making known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself."
These verses speak clearly of God having a good pleasure, a will, that He purposed in Himself. In eternity past, before anything existed, in God’s heart was a desire, something He wanted. To obtain this desire, He made a plan. This plan is God’s will, His eternal purpose. His creation of the universe and of mankind is part of that purpose.
God does everything with that particular purpose in mind. So what is the good pleasure of God’s heart?
[[Free Study Bible]]
We probably have our own ideas about what God’s purpose is. But what does the Bible say?
Ephesians 1:5 tells us God predestinated us “unto sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will.”
The good pleasure of God’s will is to have many sons, begotten by Him through regeneration to share His divine life and nature. By growing in the divine life, they would express God, and God would be seen through them.
But that’s not all. The book of Ephesians shows us even more of what God’s purpose is and what will fulfill His heart’s desire.
God desires to have sons who have His life and nature. But He also desires that these many sons collectively would be His church. We can see this in Ephesians 3:10-11:
“In order that now to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenlies the multifarious wisdom of God might be made known through the church, according to the eternal purpose which He made in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
According to God’s eternal purpose, His multifarious wisdom would be made known through the church, which is composed of all the regenerated sons of God.
Individually we may express God to a certain extent, but no one person can express Him fully. Our God is so great and so rich, He needs a great and rich expression through His church. God wants to have His many sons built up together in His life as the church. This church would be a testimony of who He is to the universe and His full expression on earth, both today and for eternity.
How can we become such a church? Note 3 on church in Ephesians 3:10 in the New Testament Recovery Version explains:
“As revealed in v. 8, the church is produced from the unsearchable riches of Christ. When God’s chosen people partake of and enjoy the riches of Christ, they are constituted with those riches to be the church, through which God’s multifarious wisdom is made known to the angelic rulers and authorities in the heavenlies. Hence, the church is God’s wise exhibition of all that Christ is.”
This is why it’s so important for us as sons of God to consistently read the Bible. As we take Him in as nourishment in the Word, we’re actually partaking of Christ and being reconstituted. Just as the food we eat constitutes our physical body, the riches of Christ we enjoy in the Word constitute us to be the church. Then we can express Him both individually in our daily lives and together with our fellow believers as the church. This is how God can obtain His heart’s desire.
If you'd like to understand more about God’s purpose and the church, we heartily encourage you to download our free e-book The Glorious Church here.
And if you live in the US, you can order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here to read all the verses mentioned in this post with their enlightening notes.
In a previous post, we saw that God warned Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in order to protect them. That tree represented Satan, the enemy of God and the source of death. Sadly, they disobeyed Him. Although their disobedience was serious, something even more tragic occurred: they were corrupted with Satan’s evil nature.
In this post, we’ll see the consequences of their action, as well as what God did and is still doing today to recover humanity, which He created for His purpose.
Since Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge, all mankind was corrupted with its evil element. This poisoned all three parts of man’s being.
First, our human spirit—our deepest part, made by God to contact, receive, and contain Him—was completely deadened. Ephesians 2:1 tells us that as fallen human beings, we were dead in our offenses and sins. Before our salvation, although we were alive physically, we were dead in our spirit. God created us to have a loving and intimate relationship with Him, but the deadening of our spirit through the fall of man rendered us unable to contact Him.
Furthermore, our soul—composed of our mind, emotion, and will—was thoroughly poisoned by the evil nature of Satan. In particular, our mind, the leading part of our soul, became darkened in its understanding, unable to comprehend the things of God. Colossians 1:21 tells us the damage to our soul was so extensive that we even became enemies of God in our mind! Our soul was utterly invaded by God’s enemy, Satan.
Finally, our body, which God created pure and undefiled, was corrupted by weakness and death and became sinful flesh. This flesh with its lusts became an evil influence over our entire being.
These were the consequences of man’s fall: every part of us was damaged, we were no longer useful to God, and we even became His enemies.
It’s clear that we desperately need salvation; we need forgiveness for our sinful acts, and we need restoration for our damaged being. God’s complete salvation includes both.
The eternal God became a man named Jesus. He lived a perfect, sinless life on earth and then died on the cross as our Substitute. He was judged and condemned by God in our place. First Peter 3:18 tells us:
“For Christ also has suffered once for sins, the Righteous on behalf of the unrighteous, that He might bring you to God.”
When we repent and believe in Jesus Christ and all He did for us, our sins are forgiven. His death on the cross takes care of all our sinful acts.
But Jesus Christ also rose from the dead. First Corinthians 15:45 tells us that in resurrection He “became a life-giving Spirit.” As the Spirit, Christ enters our deadened human spirit and enlivens it. This is how we’re born again with God’s eternal life. Now, we have the life of God! This has been His desire for us since Eden.
This divine life in us saves us from the poisonous consequences of what happened in the garden of Eden.
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Having eternal life in our spirit is wonderful, but what about the other parts of our corrupted being? Actually, our spirit being enlivened is only the first step of God’s full salvation for us.
After we’re saved, the life of God begins to spread from our spirit and restore the damaged parts of our soul—our mind, emotion, and will. As we contact Him and fellowship with Him through prayer and in His Word, God gradually transforms our soul with His wonderful life until our thoughts, feelings, and decisions are in full harmony with His.
God’s salvation even includes our bodies. Romans 8:11 is a marvelous verse that shows the extent of His restoration of our entire being:
“And if the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.”
Eventually, through the spreading and growing of God’s divine life in us, our whole being will be filled with this life. Instead of expressing the evil nature of Satan, we will express God with every part. What a complete and wonderful salvation we have in Christ!
By realizing what really happened in the garden of Eden and the consequences of Adam and Eve’s disobedience, we can appreciate the scope of God’s salvation, which is for His purpose. As a result, we’re filled with love for our Savior, Jesus Christ, and give Him more room to grow in us.
Most of us are familiar with the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. What gets our attention is usually their disobedience, which makes sense. Disobeying God is a serious matter.
But have you ever wondered why it was so terrible to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? How could this lead to the fall of all mankind? And when God told Adam and Eve not to eat of that tree, was it just a test to see whether they would obey Him?
Since Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating of the tree of knowledge, God couldn’t just look the other way. He’s absolutely righteous, and this righteousness required Him to punish them and banish them from the garden.
But is that the whole story?
Let’s suppose a mother tells her child, “Don’t drink from this bottle. What’s in here is poisonous.” Does she give the child that commandment simply to test whether he will obey her? Of course not; rather, her commandment is a loving warning. If the child were to disobey and drink from the bottle, certainly his disobedience would be an issue. But the child would have been poisoned, which is a much bigger problem.
This scenario is very similar to Adam and Eve’s situation in the garden. The issue wasn’t merely that they’d disobeyed God; rather, the much bigger problem was what they took in and the effect it had on them. And because Adam represents all mankind, what happened there affected every human being.
[[Free Study Bible]]
God commanded Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in order to protect them. That tree represented Satan, the source of death, so He warned them that if they ate of it, they would die.
But in the garden was another tree: the tree of life. The tree of life represented God, the source of life. This was the tree God wanted man to partake of to receive Him as the divine life.
As much as God wanted to share His divine life with man, He wouldn’t force the being He created to eat of this tree. Instead, God wanted man to use his free will to choose Him. He could heed God’s warning or not. It was up to him.
In dealing with Adam and Eve, God was honest about the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He warned them that eating of this tree would result in death, but he left the choice up to them.
Satan, on the contrary, was deceitful. He came to Eve in the garden, disguised as a serpent. The devil knew that if Adam and Eve ate of the tree of knowledge, the human beings God created to express Him would ingest the poison of his evil nature and be corrupted by sin and death forever.
Satan craftily twisted God’s words to Eve and even lied outright, insinuating that God was withholding something good from the couple. He made her doubt His good heart for them. Genesis 3:6 tells us what happened next:
“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make oneself wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband with her, and he ate.”
Adam and Eve disobeyed God, and by their act of disobedience, they took in the poisonous nature of the devil. The consequences of what they did were profound, affecting all humanity—even until today.
Make sure to read the second post in this series, where we discuss what these consequences were in detail, how they affect our lives today, and the steps God took to save us from the effects of what happened in the Garden of Eden.
