God's Purpose in Your Life
Did you know that God created you with a purpose in mind? God has a plan for your life.
Many have asked themselves, Why am I here? Where did I come from? Where am I going? The answer is not hard to find. It is in the Bible.
Genesis 1:27 says that “God made man in His own image” and that He created them male and female. It was the purpose of God to create people who were like Him. You were meant to have the divine nature. Love is God’s DNA. So you too were meant to be love.
We also see from Luke 3:38 that the first man, who was named Adam, was “the son of God.” So anyone who has the divine nature is a son of God. When God told Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply” (have children), He intended for them to give birth to more children of God.
But then came a problem. Adam and Eve sinned and lost the divine nature. Since that time, history has been a long story about how to regain love’s DNA and once again become children of God in His image.
Over the years, men started many religions to try to tell people how to be perfect, how to become immortal, or how to go to heaven. Each religion relied upon some form of self-discipline in order to force human nature to become good.
Some rely upon God’s help, but they usually rely upon the power of man’s will and God is just their assistant.
The Bible shows a different way.
The Bible’s Plan
The Bible teaches that sin requires the death penalty, so when Adam and Eve sinned, they became mortal. From then on, it was certain that they would not live forever.
When they had children, death (mortality) was passed down to them. Every child from Adam on was begotten by mortal seed from his or her father. The only way to avoid mortality would be to bypass one’s earthly father. A child would have to be conceived supernaturally.
That is not possible under normal conditions. But the wisdom of God found a way to do it. The way is to be begotten by God instead of by your earthly father. You have to be begotten by immortal seed from heaven.
But how can a person do that? After all, we have already been begotten by an earthly father and brought to birth by an earthly mother. Can that be changed?
No, your earthly body will never be immortal—not now or ever. There is nothing you can do about that. But there is a way to be begotten a second time, and this is the key to achieving immortality.
Being Begotten by God
The Bible says that Jesus was begotten by the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:18). For this reason, He was called “the Son of God.” His conception was a pattern for all of us to follow. Let me explain.
One of Jesus’ disciples was named John. John wrote about Jesus, saying,
“He came to His own [nation], and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were begotten not of bloodline nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:11-13)
In other words, most of the people in Jesus’ country did not have faith in Him, nor did they believe that Jesus had been begotten by the Holy Spirit. That story seemed too far-fetched for them to believe.
By rejecting Him, they also rejected the divine plan about how to become children of God. In fact, most of them thought that they were children of God by virtue of their descent from Abraham. But even Abraham, great as he was, was mortal, and his children all died as well.
John says that by having faith in Jesus we receive the right to become the children of God. He also says that the children of God are not those who can trace their bloodline to Abraham or to any other mortal man.
When we were begotten by our earthly parents, it was done by “the will of the flesh” and by “the will of man.” In other words, our parents got together by their own will and that is how we were brought into this world.
But the children of God are conceived by the will of God. He is the Father of His children. This was how Jesus Himself came into the world. God was His Father, because the Holy Spirit of God impregnated Jesus’ mother, Mary. If she had been impregnated by Joseph (her fiancé), then Jesus would have been like most other men on earth. He might have been a good man, and perhaps even a great teacher or prophet, but He would not have been the Son of God.
Peter’s Testimony
Peter was another one of Jesus’ disciples. He explained to us how to become the children of God.
“You have been begotten again not by seed which is mortal but immortal, that is, through the living and abiding word of God.” (1 Peter 1:23)
Our bodies were conceived by mortal seed from our earthly fathers, but Peter was writing to those who had been begotten a second time by immortal seed. He says that this “seed” is “the living and abiding word of God.”
But how does the word of God beget anything?
The word of God is spiritual seed. It has the power to beget children of God. God does not beget through sexual acts, as is done when begetting fleshly children. God begets through our ears.
When we hear the word of God and receive it (respond to it) by faith, God begets new life in our hearts. A new living being begins to grow within our hearts.
This new life is more than just a belief system. It is a child, a son of God. It has a different identity from the child that your parents brought into this world. The apostle Paul calls it a “new man” or “new self.”
How You can be a Child of God
A long time ago, God made a promise to save all people on earth. God was powerful enough to overcome all the evil in the earth. God was wise enough to devise a plan that would work, so that His promise would not fail.
All God required was faith in Him. As an example of faith, God spoke to a man named Abraham, promising him and his wife a son. The problem was that his wife was unable to bear children. So they waited for a long time—so long that eventually, she became too old to bear children. The promise seemed to be doomed.
But still, they believed that God was able to fulfill His promise to them, even when they lost hope in their own ability to have children. Their story is our example of what faith really is. Faith is not about your own ability to help God fulfill His promise. It is about having confidence in His ability to keep His word or promise.
The Bible calls this promise the New Covenant. It is a promise that God made to all of us. He promised to do what it takes to bring us all back to Himself, to change our nature, and to write His law in our hearts.
He promised to reverse the effects of Adam’s sin and to make us all immortal, so that we can be what God intended from the beginning. To accomplish this, Jesus came down from heaven and was conceived in Mary so that He could actually live on earth as a man.
He came to die on the cross to pay the penalty for every sin ever committed. He then rose from the dead to overcome death. Then He ascended to heaven 40 days later to await the next step in fulfilling the promise of God. Meanwhile, He sent His Holy Spirit to beget other children of God.
You can be one of those children very easily, no matter who you are. If you believe that Jesus was the Son of God who came to earth to pay the full penalty for your sin, then that qualifies you as a child of God. Believe that God meant what He said when He promised to do what it takes to save you and the rest of the world.
You do not have to wait until you have made changes in your own life. God will change your heart and life as time passes. All He asks now is that you believe He will fulfill His promise to you.
Who are You?
If you believe this word, it is because God has already given you this faith. You see, the Bible says that faith is a gift from God. It is not something that you have to generate for yourself by positive thinking. True faith is knowing that what God has promised is true and that Jesus Christ came to earth to fulfill that promise.
If you believe this, then be aware that the Spirit of God has already begotten a new person in your heart. You were born as one person, but when you are begotten a second time, you suddenly became two people. Having two identities, you suddenly have to choose which of these you want to be!
Your old self, which was born from your earthly parents, is mortal, but your new self has a heavenly Father, so it is immortal. This is a legal matter. Just as someone might want to go to the courthouse and change his name to get a new identity, so also you can go to the divine court and pray to change your identity.
It is not hard to do. The divine court is wherever you are when you pray. Here is a sample prayer:
“Heavenly Father, I have come before you to declare that I am a child of God. I want to change my identity from being a child of mortal parents to being your child. Give me a new identity and help me to live my life as that new person. Thank-you for hearing my prayer and for registering my new heavenly identity in the courts of heaven.”
You may have to remind yourself often of who you are as a child of God. Many people start to have doubts as soon as they sin again. But you should understand that sin is what the old self does, not the new self. The new self is perfect and cannot sin. So if you sin, you should know that it is not the real you that is sinning.
So remind yourself of who you are. You are registered in the courts of heaven as a child of God. Hold on to that no matter what, and pray for God’s guidance.
The challenge is to do what the new self tells you to do and to ignore what the old self wants to do. But you will find as time goes on and as you study the word of God that your life will change steadily. The key is to remind yourself of who you have become and then shift your self-awareness to that new identity.
Welcome to your new life as a child of God!