From the very beginning, God has chosen to be with His children. The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden reveals God’s desire to be with us.
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:8-9)
I don’t believe God was there to enjoy the garden, or the cool of the day. He was there to be with His children.
He wants to be with us. He loves to be with us. He chooses to be with us! Amazing!
I don’t think I’m going too far out on a theological limb when I ask you to consider this: imagine back to a time before God’s first act of creation. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are discussing all that would be involved in bringing man to life.
Before the first act of creation, God knew that man would sin. God knew that man would reject Him. Before the first act of creation, God knew that He would have to do something to redeem His creation, and to restore the relationship with man that He so desired.
Before the first act of creation, Jesus knew that He would have to give up His place in heaven, become a man like us, live the perfect life we couldn’t live, then die to redeem us back to Himself.
Before the first act of creation, God knew every sacrifice He would have to make, every indignity He would have to endure, and every pain He would have to suffer.
And knowing all of this, God created us. Why? Because of His deep, wide, everlasting and overflowing love for us. Think about that!
God wants to be with us so much that one day He is going to redeem creation, bringing us into a new heaven and a new earth, and in that new redeemed creation, He is going to come and live with us!
Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. (Revelation 21:1-3)
God’s plan for eternity is not that we will go to be with Him. Rather, it is that He will come to be with us.
It is His very name. Emmanuel – God with us!
How can we help but be blessed!