Life's Purpose (Part 3)

The following post is a continuation of a series. Please scroll down to read Parts 1 & 2 if you have not already:

Before the fall, Adam and Eve fulfilled their purpose. They had intimacy with each other and God. It was a common thing for them to walk and talk with God in the garden in the cool of the evening. When they sinned, the thing that was broken was their relationship and intimacy with God. We know that their ability to enjoy intimacy with each other was the first effect of the fall. They were ashamed of their nakedness. For the first time they could not share openly with each other without fear of being misunderstood. They hid from God because their capacity for intimacy, communion, and fellowship had been shattered. If their purpose in life had been glorifying God and their sin had destroyed their capacity for this, we might instead read that they haughtily hunted down God and proclaimed their own value to be greater than His now that they knew good and evil like He did. But we do not find that in Scripture. The broken thing was a relationship, so they hid as we often do when we are out of fellowship others.


My favorite hymns are ones that talk about that relationship. I love “Just a Closer Walk With Thee,” “In the Garden,” and “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” My favorite verse is Revelation 21:3, “And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them.” Why do I love this verse so much? To me, it is the perfect moment that we see Scripture come full circle. Once again we will dwell with God just as Adam and Eve did in the garden. The relationship will be restored in both a spiritual and physical sense. That word dwell pops up continually in Scripture and is a word that denotes a relationship with God.

Another great word is the word “abide”—one of John’s favorites. John 15 talks about our purpose—indicating that to fulfill our purpose in Christ, we must remain connected to the vine. We do so by abiding in Him. The word in the Greek is “meno” and means “to stay”: continue, dwell, endure, remain, stand, tarry (for). Dwelling and abiding with God have everything to do with intimacy and relationship and nothing at all to do with ascribing value to or glorifying Him.