An In-Depth Teaching on Discovering Our Identity, Community and Destiny in the Eternal Family of God
Before we can know what God has for us, we need to know what we’ve lost. Before we can know where we’re going, we need to know where we’ve come from. God will move us forward together into becoming who we were always meant to be if we walk by faith and trust in Him. When we reflect on Eden, we see what humanity enjoyed before sin entered the world through prideful disobedience. Adam and Eve walked with God and they enjoyed uninhibited fellowship with Him.[1] They knew no shame because they had never done anything to be ashamed of.[2] With the rest of His creation, God worked as the first Poet, speaking everything into existence by His powerful Word.[3] But with man, He worked as the first Potter, forming Adam out of the earth itself.[4] Of all the masterpieces He created, God said that they were very good.[5] The Lord God made man and woman in His image, saw that they were very good and gave them dominion over all the earth.[6] What favor they enjoyed!
Part of how we know about conditions in Eden prior to sin is by studying what the effects of sin are and what sin has done to this planet. With sin came sickness, stress, strife, toil and death.[7] Imagine what life in this world be like without any of that. Earth is not functioning as God intended it. Stewardship was given to humankind and look at what we’ve done with that free will. “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way.”[8] The insidious aftermath of rebellion against the way of love laid out by the Creator has been compounded generation after generation until we inherited the catastrophe we live in today.[9] It isn’t all bad. There are bright spots and seasons made possible when individuals and communities of humans have agreed to live according to the principles of God’s Word, but by and large life here is pain.[10]
Every human being who has ever lived is loved by God.[11] The Father sent the Son to live as fully God and fully man on earth, our perfect example of life and godleness in order to take all sin upon Himself, pay the ultimate penalty, and conquer death by rising again.[12] This sacrifice began in the Garden of Gethsemane when the weight of the world was laid on the shoulders of Jesus.[13] He bore our burdens on the cross of Mount Calvary, the mountain of the Lord and when He breathed His last,[14] His body was laid in a garden tomb which saw the greatest miracle the world has ever known![15]
This gift of redemption and restoration is freely offered to anyone who chooses to believe and put their trust in Jesus.[16] In doing so, we must turn away from the fallen ways of this world and make a conscious decision to follow God. When an individual believes, confesses, and repents they are born again[17] and the Spirit of the Living God dwells within them bringing them from spiritual death to spiritual life.[18] This connects that person spiritually to God and to every single true believer in Jesus who has ever or will ever live.[19] This beautiful unity forms the eternal family of God.[20] We are the Body of Christ.[21] We form an eternal community with each other and with God.
When Adam was formed as a clay sculpture by the hand of God, He breathed into the man’s nostrils and he came alive.[22] The study of the Holy Spirit is pneumatology. Pneuma for “breath” or “spirit” and ology for “the study of.” What a beautiful picture. Adam and Eve came alive with the breath of God but died inside spiritually when they allowed sin into their lives. Physical death also came through sin. When a person is born again, they go from spiritual death to spiritual life[23] and their body becomes a temple of the Living God. God breathes into them the Holy Spirit, the breath of new life.[24]
Through salvation and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, God is making men and women who surrender to His authority into who they were meant to be. God is restoring us to Eden with every act of submission to His plan, from glory to glory. God is reshaping us back into His image, more and more like Jesus[25]. With every soul that is rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought into the Light, the Kingdom of God expands upon the earth.[26] Every passing day is one day closer to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and the restorative work will be complete. The eternal family of God will dwell in the New Heaven and the New Earth in perfect harmony with God and with one another. Our ultimate destiny is adventure in the New Garden of Eden.[27] You see, we came from a garden, we were redeemed in a garden, and we will be restored to a garden.
In our next in-depth teaching, we will explore the character of Almighty God as revealed through many of His Names. We were originally created in His spiritual image and are being reshaped into that image. Therefore, as image-bearers of God and partakers of His divine glory, in Him we discover our identity. Join me for that in two weeks. Until then, let us grow daily together at Our Family Table!
Just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 5:21
And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
II Corinthians 3:18
[1] Genesis 3:8
[2] Genesis 3:7
[3] Genesis 1:1-25
[4] Genesis 2:7
[5] Genesis 1:31
[6] Genesis 1:28
[7] James 1:15, Romans 5:12
[8] Isaiah 53:6
[9] Genesis 3:13-19, Numbers 14:18, Exodus 20:5,
[10] Job 14:1
[11] John 3:16
[12] II Corinthians 5:21
[13] Luke 22:44
[14] Luke 23:46, Isaiah 53:6
[15] Luke 24:1-3
[16] Acts 4:12
[17] Romans 10:9
[18] John 5:24, I Corinthians 6:19-20
[19] Hebrews 12:1, Ephesians 4:11-13
[20] John 1:12, I John 3:1-2, Ephesians 2:19-22, Galatians 6:10
[21] Romans 12:5
[22] Genesis 2:7
[23] Romans 6:23, I John 3:14, John 5:24, John 3:16
[24] John 20:22-24
[25] II Corinthians 3:18
[26] Colossians 1:13-14
[27] Revelation 22
Forever Home in the Eternal Family of God 
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