In creation God demonstrated His plan for us was to know Him and that our human life is where we would learn about God and His ways. The creation account in Genesis 1 – 2 shows this goal: man is set in the midst of and over all creation; God gives him work to do plus commands.
Genesis 1:28
God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Genesis 2:15-17
Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and tend it. The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may freely eat; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for on the day that you eat from it you will certainly die.”
In this context did God intend for Adam and Eve to know Him. Know in the Bible is a word for intimacy – a man knows a woman and a child is born. In this intimacy is the relationship developed and a love for each other engendered.
This intimate knowing was God’s plan for us from the beginning and the environment in which we would know God is creation or our human existence.
Even now that sin has entered the world God’s plan hasn’t changed. Scripture tells us that in salvation God is with us through the Holy Spirit’s presence. In Matthew 1:23 the Angel spoke to Joseph and quoted the prophecy from Isaiah regarding the birth of the Chris: “Behold, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son, and they shall name Him Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.” And 1 John 1:3b says, …”indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ”.
Yet a better way to understand God’s goal is for us to be with Him because it implies us coming to Him.
As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:20, “…Be reconciled to God”. In other words since sin drove us away from God our need is to return to God’s presence and be with Him. Matthew 11:28 Jesus says: “Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”. Acts 17:30b Paul says, “…God is now proclaiming to mankind that all people everywhere are to repent,”. And in Acts 3:19 Peter says, “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord;”
In other words God’s will is that we dwell with Him: Us with God. That we turn from worshipping idols and bearing fruits of living without Him (Galatians 5:19-21) to come to Him and live with the fruits of His presence (Galatians 5:22-23)
This is the key: seeing that we have to come to God since sin has entered the world and separated us from God and that is God’s will. Us with God is God’s will for us. The presence and work of Jesus Christ confirms this.
After our repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ (Acts 20:21), which is reconciliation with God, we begin to pursue knowing Him in our human existence just like Adam and Eve were to do in the Garden of Eden. The foundation of knowing is study of the Bible and prayer and then living life in fellowship with God.
The point: when you hear the Gospel and are called to repent and call on the name of Jesus Christ (Romans 10:13) to be reconciled to Him it’s critical to believe God’s will for you is that you do this so you can dwell with Him to know Him and that in this life is where the knowing begins: Us with God is God’s will:
Jesus confirms this with His prayer prior to going to the cross recorded in John 17:3:
“And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
Views from an Evangelist 