Contents
- 1 God’s goal is clear. First, He created a lavish Earth to provide all the vital inorganic minerals, organic trees, and food resources.
God’s goal is clear. First, He created a lavish Earth to provide all the vital inorganic minerals, organic trees, and food resources.
Second, He created humans and gave them two major injunctions: multiply your numbers through families and, therefore, socialization; manage the minerals and living organisms and, therefore, rulership.
Humans are preparing to be kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth (Revelation 5:10). I want to remind you that Jesus is a King (He teaches rulership) and Priest (after the order of Melchizedek; priests teach socialization, Deuteronomy 17:11. Christ taught to love your neighbor). God’s goal is to prepare us to do what He is doing right now.
(Transform Your Mind, Upgrade Your Life – Chapter 3)
I want the God-Intended meaning of Scripture
God’s goal is to beget sons and daughters
We are looking at God’s goal because this book is Transform Your Mind… We need to grasp WHY we should take that seriously so we know what to transform our minds into.
1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;
2 Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.
3 And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth.
4 And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:
These three verses give us the essence of God’s goal and clearly teach us the meaning of the image and likeness of God. We have absolutely no difficulty in understanding verse 3, where Seth is the image of Adam. In English, we even have the term; he’s the spitting image of his father. This refers to the outward features, the inward mindset, or both.
The Explanation of God’s goal is that He is begetting (1 John 5:1, 15) sons and daughters precisely like Himself, after His image and likeness. I draw your attention to Adam in verse 2. The King James translators capitalized it, which is an error. Firstly, it’s plural (their name, whereas Adam is the singular name of the first male). Secondly, adam refers to both the male and female genders. A better translation would be human. This shows the equality of males and females before God and why The Explanation says our destiny is to become Kings and Queens.
Chapter One of this book details how God, Elohim, plural, is a Family with Two Beings now: the Father and the Son. The Mother is referred to in Genesis 2 with the Creation of Eve, who represents the Church (see Origin of Woman), the cornerstone founder being Christ (that’s why Eve was taken out of Adam). God’s goal is to beget sons and daughters precisely the same way Adam begat sons and daughters in Genesis 5:4 above.
God’s goal is expanding His Family, each of which, male and female, must be in His image
God gave us the family institution, which cares for humans, and a luscious Earth, which humans are to take care of, to develop His image.
Developing a family is a long-term experience: dating, courtship, engagement, marriage, birthing, parenting through childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood—a full-time process until their sons and daughters start their own cycle of familyhood.
1. God’s Goal of Socialization
Throughout childhood and adolescence, children graduate, step by step, from dependence to independence. Parenting is caregivering, guiding, and supporting while their offspring gradually assert their autonomy. That’s growing into the image of their parents. Like father like son, like mother like daughter. This delicate balance requires patience and flexibility on the part of parents as they navigate the transition from dependence to autonomy.
Independence, but indeed not an island unto oneself. Socialization is interdependence. Each son and daughter learns to integrate with society. Becoming social involves mastering practical skills and developing emotional intelligence and social competence. Children learn how to navigate relationships, regulate their emotions, and empathize with others through interactions with parents, peers, and caregivers. This gradual socialization process requires years of experience and practice to internalize fully.
The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things.
This is a positive conversation, a give-and-take. Christ went through this process in His family with His parents and brothers and sisters (Matthew 13:55). The reason parenting takes a lengthy twenty years reveals that God’s plan takes time, thousands of years, to give all humans, His sons and daughters, time to reach His Image, godly autonomy, and interdependence in His Family. This sole passage about Christ’s youth is inserted here to show us this essential gradual growth period of children.
46 And it came to pass, that after three days they [Christ’s parents] found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions.
47 And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.
52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.
Christ’s socialization process. God established the family with a father, mother, brothers, and sisters to develop humans on a physical level. That family is the physical representation of the image of His Family of Sons and Daughters, Kings and Priests, which He’s in the middle of developing right now on Earth.
2. God’s Goal of Rulership
God created Earth so humans could have a room with toys to manage. That’s a bit tongue-in-cheek but not far from reality because as we mellow, we progress to more sophisticated objects in seasoned environments.
As individuals progress through life, their focus naturally shifts toward developing and managing (ruling) their personal careers. This entails acquiring the necessary knowledge, skills, and competencies to thrive academically and seize future professional opportunities. Such educational and vocational growth is an ongoing process that takes time and typically extends into early adulthood.
The idea is to recognize the interconnectedness of humanity and the planet we inhabit; we are propelled to cultivate a sense of responsibility towards both. The development of personal careers should not be pursued at the expense of neglecting our fellow human beings or disregarding the well-being of the Earth. Instead, it is essential to integrate a compassionate and sustainable approach into our professional endeavors. This is how individuals find purpose and meaning in their careers.
… [referring to Christ] is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary…
The crowd knew Christ as a carpenter, tekton, in Greek, an artisan/craftsman, in particular, a carpenter, woodworker, or builder. That was Christ’s profession until the age of 30, how He managed/ruled His career. He was a builder in preparation for “I will build my Church, ecclesia in Greek, assembly (Matthew 16:18).
We multiply in families in the image of God’s Family. We manage Earth in the image of God, who rules the Universe. Why do we care for other humans and the Earth? To reach God’s goal of growing into His image. One final point about the image of God
God’s Goal for Humans Interacting with Each Other and Earth includes Ups and Downs
There is a time for joy and a time for suffering, a time for wellness and a time for pain. Life includes tests and trials. Kids scrape their knees and worse before they learn to walk and run. Scientists and technicians test rockets that blow up before developing a stable end product. A lot of basketballs miss the hoop before we build our skills.
We make mistakes with our families and friends in socialization, causing heartbreak. Similarly, we make mistakes in handling our personal and professional Earth resources, causing hardship. These trials and errors are a normal part of humans living on Earth.
Growing up to become autonomous adults is built through tests and trials. Children need opportunities to make decisions, solve problems, and learn from their mistakes. This iterative process requires time for experimentation and refinement. Parents play a crucial role in providing guidance and support while allowing children the freedom to explore and learn from their experiences.
2 …count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations; (trials)
3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith works patience.
4 But let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect (more mature) and entire, wanting nothing.
The basis of life is family, professional work, in the image of God.
Learning from our trials and errors in our families and professional work is the way to bring ourselves more in line with God’s image. God’s goal is being accomplished right now in the lives of every human because He created and put us on a luscious Earth to experiment.
In the next chapter, we’ll see the incredulous end result of why God placed humans on Earth.
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