Even before the earth was there, someone was on the throne in heaven. A daddy. He had a son. And he loved the son sooo much that he wanted to have more children…. And that’s why he made you!
God’s heart is a family. A family that travels in absolute unity with each other, appreciating each other continuously, and where divine, unconditional love prevails. A family that reflects heaven on earth. God has such a longing to love people. This family of God bears His name and identity. He is their Father and they are His family.
Instead of building them a house, He made them a garden, a beautiful place to have fellowship with His family. God had arranged it perfectly, everyone was comfortable.
Let’s take a look at what God said in the Bible when He made man:
Genesis 1:26 “And God said, “Let us make man in our image, like us! Let them rule…”
This gives us insight into what God’s thoughts were on this when He made man. God wanted to reflect Himself in man. God appointed man as His representative on earth, as His image. He should rule on earth instead of God and through God!
God gives man a mission. But before he does that, he says that man is similar to God, in his image and then he has a mission! This is important. First God equips man and then he commissions him to live out what he was equipped for. Namely to rule. Thereby the whole world is flooded with divine life – that is the plan. Man and woman reflect what an intimate relationship God wants to have with man.
And then God blessed man first before giving them the mandate to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Man was dependent on God and was already enabled by God for the mission before he accomplished anything. Everything was very good and everything was effected and created in and through God.
What then was man supposed to rule over?
God is a team player. He wanted to stop the machinations of the devil through man. God gave man the authority to influence the earth through God’s life. Man was to cultivate and guard the garden. God entrusted it to man and wanted this garden of communion with God to be visible throughout the world, thereby embodying heaven on earth. It was to be a garden where the Holy Spirit reigns, the kingship of God on earth, represented by man.
And the way there, to really live this out completely, to be inseparable with God – to be one, was a tree, in the center of the garden: The tree of life. Through this tree man would be completely flooded with the life of God – forever. But … it came differently.
Actually it was quite normal that God walked with man in the garden. And suddenly, from one day to the next, man hid himself. He felt ashamed and unclean and really felt this holiness and purity of God. What happened?
God said “You can do whatever you want in the garden, but you shall not eat of this fruit. For if you eat of it, you will die.” But man had done it. He died. Not directly physically, but in spirit, in relationship with God. And there man had distrust of God. He doubted that He really meant well all the time. Man had alienated himself from God. He had sinned. He disobeyed the law of God. He let death into him and his spirit died – the intimate connection with God. That was a blatant break in relationship that brings the break we see today with sickness, death and all the other consequences of sin.
That was a glaring point, even for God. And since then, God began to seek man. Over and over again. A love story of how God tried to get close to man and have fellowship with him in many different ways.
The problem was that over and over and over again, people turned away from him. There were far too few who really approached God and got to know his heart. There had to be a new plan.
And then came a rescue mission. The master plan. Jesus Christ. Jesus lived the life God envisioned for mankind. Jesus was man who lived in perfect relationship with the Father. He was one with him. He did what God did. He said what God said. Jesus modeled what a divine family looks like on earth. He embodied intimate communion with God the Father.
And God has chosen us to be just like His Son: to be perfect, complete, divine before Him, and to be in a love relationship with Him. And His will is that we become His family just like Jesus Christ, and then He is also our Daddy. God wants to show His glory to all creation and He does so through grace – gifts that no one deserves. (Ephesians 1:4f; John 17:24)
However, there is a huge problem…. sin. But more on that in the next post!
See you next time!