Genesis 1:26 says that God created us in His very own image, because making us His family was always a part of His plan. Our Heavenly Father also tells us in the Book of Genesis that Adam was the first human being He created, and God gave him dominion and authority in the earth. Heavenly Father commissioned Adam to till the soil and to be the caretaker of His wondrous planet. This was the work that God tasked Adam to pursue. And when He was lonely, God caused a great sleep to fall on him. He took a rib from Adam’s side and made Eve, the first woman. From the very beginning, our Heavenly Father demonstrated to us the requirement of purpose, relationship, and worship. None of these can be neglected if we desire to be pleasing in His sight.
Philippians 4:19(ESV) declares, “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Because of His great mercy and grace, humankind has made extraordinary gains through our intelligence and ingenuity. Our technological and scientific advances are beyond what any of our fore parents could ever have imagined. All of this is possible because God gave His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins. Jesus Christ broke all the barriers that held us back, including the barriers that limited our intelligence and creativity.
God supplies our every need, there can be no doubt of this. The mistake that humanity has made is to allow our intellectual gains to fill us with arrogance and ingratitude. We have overlooked what God has done and take the credit for ourselves. 2Corinthians 3:5(NLT) straightens this out. It tells us “It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God.” We can do nothing unless God allows it, but society doesn’t think this way. It depends on the systems of the world for its sufficiency, and not God. We must be ever so careful as believers that we don’t fall into this camp.
God’s Purpose for our lives
God has set us apart and called us to be a holy people before Him. He tells us in 1Peter 1:16 that we must be holy because He is holy. This holiness is identified by God according to the amount of His Word that is in our hearts and minds. It’s in the way that we live. By this, we must know that our purpose is to please God with our entire lives; to do as He commands in Romans 12:1 and offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, one that He finds holy and acceptable. We accomplish this by living according to the example of Jesus Christ.
Romans 8:29(NLT) tells us, “For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” We are chosen by God to be like His Son. This means that our hearts should be filled with faith and gratitude. Our purpose is to live through our faith in Him, and everything that we do should express our thankfulness for all that God has accomplished for us through our powerful Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Our relationship with God
Philippians 2:12(NLT) says, “Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear.” Many people, including believers, are not reverencing God with deep respect and adoration. They try to place Him and the things that are important to Him in second or third place. We should know that He knows what is in our hearts, and He knows when we are not honoring our relationship with Him the way we should.
God did not make Eve when He created Adam. Eve came later. There are many lessons about God’s order that we can learn from this, but one of the most important lessons is the reality that God wanted the relationship established between Him and Adam first. His relationship with God was the solid foundation on which every other aspect of Adam’s life would be built. If we miss this, we’ll miss a whole lot. Prayers go unanswered, huge mistakes are made, and emptiness, disappointment, and despair continue whenever we neglect our commitment to God. We cannot make the mistake of underestimating how important God values relationship. He set this precedent in the beginning, and blessings abound when we hold our relationship with Him as near and dear to our hearts as we should.
Worship God in spirit and in truth
Jesus Christ told the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4:24(NLT), “For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” This is a profound truth and an essential practice to sustain our relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Often, we endure consequences and circumstances that sometimes leave us feeling lost, lonely, or without the anchor we so desperately need. Most people think the answer can be found in more money, a new relationship, or with making ourselves aesthetically appealing to those of the world. God wants us to recognize that He, and He alone, is the medicine for what ails us.
So many of us are crying out that we want something real. Well, God is waiting on us to present Him with something real as well. He is deserving of everything we have to give, and crumbs from our tables will not cut it. Many of us practice the traditions and customs of worship, but our hearts are far from God. In 1Samuel 16:7(NKJV), God says of Himself, “For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” 2Chronicles 16:9(NLT) gives us further proof of God’s requirement. It says, “The eyes of the LORD search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.”
In the beginning, God made it very plain to us that carrying out His purpose is the great privilege of our lives, and our relationship with Him sustains us. In Old Testament times, He wanted His people to be released from Egyptian slavery so they could worship Him. Once released, they made a tabernacle, so they’d have a place to honor and serve Him. Jesus Christ ushered in a new covenant between God and us. Because of his sacrifice and resurrection, our bodies are the place of true worship to Heavenly Father. It’s not about customs or a building. We’re God’s children and He is looking for true worship in our hearts. This was His plan from the beginning, and nothing in our lives should be more important than this.■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“In the Beginning”, written by Kim Times, edited by Fran Mack for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2022. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!