Deb's ~ Who are we, really?

Who are we, really?
* We are children of the Most High God! *
by Deb (Sandberg) Murtagh
December 28, 2006
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Way back at the dawn of time as we know it, God created mankind, Adam the man and Eve the woman. All things were created by God that were created, and they were "very good". The burning question is why did God create us, this world, and all the cosmos? I've heard it said by some that God was lonely, He *needed* companionship/children. I have to say I dispute this idea, for God is all in all of Himself, He has need of nothing. God had companionship in the angelic host He created, so he wasn't lonely. He didn't create angels to keep Him company, they are part of a bigger picture however. He had a greater plan. Yes, we are planned, God is into planned parenthood!

So, if God didn't need us then why did He create us? You just said God didn't *need* children. Yes that's what I said. God doesn't need anything, He's God. With that fact aside we can move on to why He did create us. It's interesting to note the events of creation, how God created the heavens & earth and all in them, and as the crowning jewel on the last day of His creationfest, He created mankind. Day six, mankind is made. You can read all about creation in Genesis 1-2. Have you ever wondered why God would create man last? It's because all that was created before that was created FOR mankind. All physical matter things were created FOR us!

Did you know that God was not alone in His creative works? God had a helper in creation. His name, as we've come to know Him, is Jesus. I don't know what His heavenly name was, before He came to earth in human form, the Bible doesn't tell us that, but one of His many names is called *the Word*. The Word meaning He carried out what God spoke. God spoke it, and our Lord carried those words into being, He (the Lord) made whatever God said to make. Our Lord was with God, and He was God (we know Him as the Son of God). He gave life to all that He created according to the will of God (the Father).

In the beginning was the Word:

Jhn 1:1-5 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

So, you and I are products of God's spoken Word. God thought of us and spoke our names (so to speak) and Jesus carried out that thought to create the living, breathing being. Now that we've established that God and His Son, Jesus, created all that we know of, we can cover our relationship to them. Here established is that ALL Jesus spoke of in His human lifetime, He spoke of by the Father ... meaning He was God's voice, the very embodiment of God Himself.

Jesus establishes Himself as the Word of God:

Jhn 14:23-24 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me.

Jesus prays for us and in so doing He reveals our purpose,
why we were created:

Jhn 17:1 These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:

Jhn 17:2-3 As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

Jhn 17:4-5 I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

Jhn 17:6-8 I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received [them], and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.

Jhn 17:9-10 I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.

Jhn 17:11-14 And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we [are]. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled. And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

Jhn 17:15-19 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.

Jhn 17:20-23 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, [art] in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

Jhn 17:24-26 Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare [it]: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

We were created to share God's glory for all of eternity (as the angels do), for it will take all of eternity for us to get to know His magnificance and glory! But, when given the opportunity to chose that, we followed suit with satan instead. We chose not to believe God when He said not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge because we'd die. The devil said, we surely would not die ... he lied. The death God was speaking of was eternal, not physical. The death we chose was eternal separation from our Father. Why do you think that the discussion back then in the Garden of Eden was only regarding the Tree of Knowledge, and not the Tree of Life? They were both there and accessible. Why didn't Eve take the fruit from the Tree of Life first? Because the discussion was regarding the Tree of Knowledge is why. Their attention was specifically pointed toward the Tree of Knowledge.

Gen 2:8-9 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Gen 2:16-17 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Gen 2:21-23 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This [is] now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

Even in the first days of the Garden of Eden, God offered mankind LIFE, they could freely have eaten the fruit of the Tree of Life, it was right smack dab in the center of the garden, in the most obvious spot! It's interesting to note here that woman (Eve) wasn't made at the time God put man (Adam) into the garden. God formed her from Adam's rib AFTER He'd put Adam in the garden and AFTER He had spoken those commands to Adam. It's possible that Eve would have heard those words second hand, not through God but through Adam. Now, in light of this fact, it is interesting that satan went to Eve isn't it?

Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

Gen 3:2-3 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which [is] in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

Gen 3:4-5 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

Gen 3:6-7 And when the woman saw that the tree [was] good for food, and that it [was] pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make [one] wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they [were] naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

        Satan starts out with a misquote, "hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" No that is not what God said, God said, "And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Do you see it? Satan said 'didn't God say you shall NOT eat of every tree'? Indeed that is NOT what God said, God said they could freely eat of every tree except the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil. Why would God make such a tree and then tell them not to eat of it? Eve also misquotes in her reply in that she says that they may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden they were not allowed to eat. Not so, the tree in the middle of the garden was the Tree of Life, they were not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge (which was nearby) is what God said. She also said something more that was not in God's command to Adam, "neither shall ye touch it", God didn't say she couldn't touch it. Perhaps her misquote was due to the fact that she wasn't present when God said that, she likely heard it from Adam ... what man passes on instructions *exactly*? LOL

        The Tree of Life is there, in the midst of the garden, no where does it say they could not eat of that tree! They could have freely eaten from it. But the one they should not eat from was the one pointed out to them. As we see with our own experience as children, or raising children, when you say to a child, "don't touch that stove, it's hot" ... well ... they touch it, because they don't know what hot is until they experience it. Once they touch it, their *eyes are opened* and they then know why they should not have touched it. God KNEW we would be tempted and He KNEW we would eat of that tree first, even though the Tree of Life was there and freely available! Had Eve & Adam eaten of the Tree of Life first, they would never have fallen to temptation, they would have become one with God right then and there! But it was not to be.

        Unfortunately much of mankind has forsaken their Maker. But as we see above, belief is part of the plan for salvation. Since mankind chose to listen to satan in the Garden of Eden, we became dead to God in the eternal sense. A great chasm was created between God and us when we chose to disobey God, the first signs of our mistrust and disbelief in our Maker, how sad. Now only Jesus Christ can bridge that gap and allow us to cross back over to eternity. This worldly existance would have been the only life we would ever known and then hell (eternal separation from God) if Jesus had not come to take on our sins upon Himself, so that we could be reconciled back to our Father.

        God, of course, had a plan of redemption before He even created us, and that was to send His only begotten Son (Jesus) to take on our sins and make atonement for us so that we could live for eternity if we choose to believe in the One that sacrificed Himself for our sakes. God knew we would choose to fall as He knew that satan would influence us to do so. Still, for those of us that choose life, in Jesus Christ our Lord & Savior, we need to remember that throughout our life's trials & tribulations, we are God's glory and intended eternal children of the Most High God! Thank You Jesus!

If you need a reminder of who you are, use this graphic, a link would be appreciated!

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