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Sample Chapter from
How To Know God Loves You
copyright 2021 by Glenn Davis
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Chapter One
What Is God's Will For Your Life?
In order to know if God loves us, we need to know the will of God for our lives. If we are going to discover what God wants for our lives, we will need to look at the original design. It is there we will see how things are supposed to be. We will look at why they aren’t that way now and what we can do about it later. But if we begin to understand that God loves us, we have to look at how He meant things to be. We can only really see this in Genesis Chapters 1 and 2. Chapter 1 gives us an overview, and Chapter 2 gives us details on some aspects of what happened at the dawn of time.
Take a few minutes and read these two chapters in your Bible.
We see from Genesis 1:1-25 that God created the perfect environment. All was beautiful. There was plenty of delicious, healthy food through plants and trees [1:11-13]. No one would have any reason to go hungry. God balanced the sun, moon, seasons, land, and seas so that there would be moderate weather. No blasting heat, no blistering cold, no violent storms. Nature was in perfect balance.
We also see that God created a wide variety of life, such as birds, animals, and ocean creatures. Yet none of these were violent or harmful. The lamb could literally lie beside the lion without fear of being eaten. You could swim with a great white shark in perfect harmony if you wanted.
Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. Gen. 2:8-9a, NIV
This entire perfect environment was created specifically by God for humanity. It was designed to fit together and work together for the common good.
Although the original economy was not money-based, God made gold and precious stones for beauty, and to so show that He did not want anyone to have lack in any area of life. God did not desire anyone to experience poverty on any level.
As the crowning achievement, God created human beings.
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. Gen. 1:27-30, NIV
The first thing to consider is that God made man and woman equal. They were both made in His image. What does it mean to be made in the image of God? The answer to that could be a course in itself; however, here are
some brief points. Remember this, _______________, you are valuable because you are made in the image of God Himself. If doesn’t matter if you were conceived in rape, or had abusive parents, or were rejected by your parents, or whether you had the most wonderful of homes - you are valuable because you are made in the image of God. Every time God looks at you, He sees a little bit of Himself.
God doesn’t have a physical body, so our body, as fantastic of a living machine that it is, is not in the image of God. God is a Spirit, and we are also primarily spirits who currently live in bodies. Our spirits are able to communicate with God Himself, which is part of being in His image. To have real, deep communication, you have to be “like” something else. A dog may understand certain basic communications, but it is impossible to have a deep two-way conversation with a dog because it is not in our image. So, part of being in God’s image is the ability [perhaps untapped and certainly not used to its fullest potential] to communicate with God.
Other aspects of being in the image of God are the ability to have creative thought, make independent decisions, and feel and express a wide variety of emotions on a level that the animal kingdom cannot. So, God created us with the ability to enjoy and grow in beautiful relationships with Himself and with other human beings.
When it comes to our bodies, almost all of our cells have been replaced every 7 - 10 years. Your body, literally, was originally designed as a living machine for you to use forever. Your body was never meant to grow old and die. Death was not part of the original design. Although we have lived with it for so long that it seems a natural part of life, it is actually unnatural.
Adam and Eve were given responsibility and authority. This shows that God desired them to be fulfilled in life. They could have a sense of genuine accomplishments without a lot of the frustration and problems that often hinder us today.
Genesis 2 shows us that Adam was created first, but he was lonely. God did not want that ache to be in his heart, so He created Eve. They were a perfect couple, enjoying a mutually satisfying relationship. Human companionship, as well as Divine companionship, are part of the original design.
So putting this all together, what was God original design for your life,
_______________? God desired that you live in harmony with nature, never experience harsh weather conditions, enjoy the wide variety of creatures in the earth without fear of harm, never go hungry, never know poverty, have fulfilling [not frustrating] work and accomplishments, have mutually beneficial relationships with other human beings, and have an enriching relationship with God Himself in a body that is immortal. That is your original design. That was God’s will for you. That is the God Who loves you.
However, I am willing to bet that you are not experiencing your original design. I know I am not. Something happened to change the original design to what it is now. What happened? If God is All-Powerful and Loving, why didn’t He stop it? We will learn what went wrong [and what God did about it], but first, we have to understand the difference between fantasy and reality.
We will look at that in the next chapter, but now…
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