How Do We Miss God's Purpose?

By Rev. Ernest O'Neill

I can put it in more down to earth terms. When Adam was in the Garden of Eden, God's will was this: "Adam, there is an orange tree over there. You need some orange juice this morning, go and get some orange juice." That was the Father's plan. Through His friendship with Adam, Adam would know what God was thinking. God would meet all Adam's needs through His directing Adam how to develop the world.

In that way, the seagulls from the Santa Barbara coast would never have died from the oil and tar that we produce through our oil spills. It was the Father's will that He would direct us where to get the oil and how to develop the world's resources. It was the Father's will that we would work in love with Him and receive directions from Him. He would provide us our security as we lived in friendship with Him. In that way, we'd do our jobs because God was guiding us to do them, not because they give us security. We would get our security through Him and from Him and He would add all other things unto us.

Now loved ones, what happened? We men and women decided we would get what we need from the world ourselves. We will get this by our own knowledge of good and evil. Adam said, "Why listen to Him telling you about getting juice from the tree? You know that you got juice from that tree last year, why not note that down in a book and we'll establish a knowledge of good and evil. It is good to get juice from this tree. It is evil to get it from that tree. Let us set up a whole series of laws and precedents that will enable us to use this world to get what we need from it. We will live by our own knowledge of good and evil.

So we determined to do this by our own power and our own strength. You see it there loved ones if you look at the account of The Fall in Genesis 3. You see how it came about. The very words that Satan used are some of the words that we have used.

Genesis 3:6: "So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food," -- that is she thinks "I can get my security from this knowledge of good and evil. I can know how to play the securities. I can know how to play the stock market. I can know how to do my job better than everybody else so that I scramble to the top of the heap and get a better salary. I can get food from this if I use my head and avoid what is evil and get what human beings say is good."

Genesis 3:6 continued: "... and that it was a delight to the eyes." She thinks, "I can get happiness for myself. I can buy a boat with this money. I can buy a motorbike with this money. I can buy a nice house. I can get happiness with these things."

Genesis 3:6 continued: "and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise." She thinks, "I can get power using my mind to control other people. Through my knowledge, I can gain significance and importance and influence for myself."

Loved ones, what we did was, we turned away from God Himself and we turned to the world. We began to use the world and the love that the world would give us to try to live in this world the way God wanted us to. In other words we were still aiming at being in His image. We still wanted to be God but we wanted to take His place. We didn't want to be His children and love with Him. We wanted to be God. We wanted to control things.

 Back to Seeking God Daily Home Page