Apr 18, 2017
When we believed in Jesus Christ, we were forgiven by God and delivered from eternal judgment. Not only so, we were also born again, regenerated with the life of God in our spirit. We thank the Lord for these wonderful realities! What tremendous mercy God had on us!
But let’s take a moment to ask, Why? Why did God save us? Why did He regenerate us? Going back even further, why did God create us to begin with?
Our general view of God may be that He is kind, loving, and full of compassion; that as Almighty God, He has everything He needs and lacks nothing; that He is a benevolent Being, whose main role is to care for the needs of His creatures, namely us human beings. God wants to keep me safe, help me get good grades, arrange for me a great job, find me the perfect spouse, solve my problems—the list goes on.
When this is our view of God, our prayers naturally revolve around ourselves. We ask Him for things that meet our needs or fulfill our wants. And when it comes to knowing God’s will, we usually pray, “God, what is Your will for me?” Somehow, we always end up at the center.
But does God have a greater goal in mind than my personal welfare? Does He have a desire for Himself? A will that’s greater than His will for where I should work or who I should marry? Does He want something in particular?
God is indeed a loving and kind Being. And while it’s true that He is God Almighty who lacks nothing, in another sense He does have a need, because He has a desire deep in His heart that hasn’t yet been fulfilled. And because He has this desire, God has a way, a plan, to gain what He longs for.
We can somewhat realize God has a particular desire just by observing our own lives. Each of us wants joy and satisfaction. But why is that? We weren’t taught to be that way. Actually, our desire for joy and satisfaction is a reflection of God’s desire for joy and satisfaction—because we were made in the image of God.
The same is true of our goals, which stem from our desires. Most of us, from the time we’re young and as we grow to adulthood, begin to form plans to fulfill our wants and desires. We have goals—some big, some small, some short-term, some long-term. And because of these, we don’t usually live in a purposeless or aimless way. Our goals arise from something we want that will make us happy, and so we plan our lives accordingly.
We as human beings make plans to fulfill our desires and take steps to achieve our aims. So what about the God in whose image we were made? Surely His desires are even deeper, and His plans correspondingly greater!
The Bible tells us clearly that God has a desire and a plan to fulfill that desire. Ephesians 1:9 shows us God has a desire: “Making known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself.”
The words “will,” “good pleasure,” and “purposed” clue us in to the fact that God has a particular desire, a good pleasure that will make Him happy and satisfy His heart. Because of this God planned and purposed to obtain that desire.
Revelation 4:11 says, “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power, for You have created all things, and because of Your will they were, and were created.”
Note 2 in the New Testament Recovery Version on this verse says: “God is a God of purpose, having a will of His own pleasure. He created all things for His will that He might accomplish and fulfill His purpose.”
The purposeful God didn’t create the universe haphazardly or on a whim. No, He had a desire, a good pleasure, and so He created all things according to His will, according to a plan to fulfill that desire. The millions of items of God’s creation, including we ourselves, were created purposely for God’s will so that He could obtain what would bring Him joy!
We’ve discussed in previous podcasts how God wants to have an intimate, subjective, and loving relationship with human beings by coming to live in them and being their life so that they can become His expression. This is why He formed and shaped us in such a specific way, with a spirit enabling us to receive and contain Him and a soul for us to express Him.
But a single individual alone cannot possibly express all that God is. God’s intention is that the human beings who receive Him personally would together become a living entity, full of His life, to express Him to the entire universe.
This living entity is the church. Ephesians 1:22-23 says, “The church, which is His Body, the fullness of the one who fills all in all.”
Note 3 on verse 23 explains: “Christ, who is the infinite God without any limitation, is so great that He fills all things in all things. Such a great Christ needs the church to be His fullness for His complete expression.”
No wonder God longs to have the church; through it He can be expressed! And His blueprint, His plan, for gaining the church includes each one of us.
It may seem strange to hear that the church is God’s heart’s desire. If our understanding is that the church is a physical building or a religious organization, to say that the church is the desire of God surely doesn’t make sense. This is why we need to put aside what we usually think of when we read or hear the word “church,” and instead see what the church really is as it is revealed in God’s Word.
In future podcasts we’ll delve further into the matter of the church, helping us to appreciate it as God’s goal and see how we were saved for that goal.
For now, we can consider the verses in this podcast before the Lord and pray to see that God has a desire, a will, and that this desire is the church. We can pray, “Lord, open my eyes and give me revelation to see Your heart’s desire. Show me what the church is according to Your Word.”