Depending on God: 7 Days to Recognizing Your Deep Need for HimSample

We Depend Entirely Upon God for Our Purpose

We do not determine or create our purpose; the meaning of life doesn’t come from us. Rather, God gives us our purpose. That’s good news because his purpose for us is better than anything we could imagine. “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.’” Did you catch that? God created us to rule “the whole earth”! If you ask a college graduate what she plans to do with her life and she replies, “I want to rule the world,” don’t laugh. Congratulate her—she’s on the right path. (How she gets there is another matter entirely!)

God made human beings to rule the earth: “They will rule…the whole earth.” So we read, “God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female” What does that mean? In the ancient Near East (the context in which Moses wrote Genesis), an image represented a god; “the image functions in the place of the deity.” A king was also considered to be the image of a god, “ruling on the god’s behalf.” The Lord forbade his people from making an image of him, not because he was against images of himself but because he had already made them—human beings. In God’s plan, his image wasn’t a carved statue. Nor was it limited to a singular king. The image of God was “democratized to all humanity.” God designed humans to cooperate in exercising his royal authority on the earth. That’s amazing, but it doesn’t end there.

Genesis 2 zooms in on the creation of humans. After the Lord formed the first man and breathed life into him, “the Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it”. There’s another specific assignment—to work and watch over God’s garden. There’s more going on here than horticulture. There are only two other places where Moses uses work and watchover as a pair—Numbers 3:7-8 and 8:25-26, where they refer to priestly service in the Tabernacle sanctuary. That leads us to understand that humans were to serve as priests to God in the garden sanctuary in Eden.

Rulers of the whole earth and priestly servants of God. That’s a high calling. But notice that—it’s a calling. It’s not something we won in battle, purchased with wealth, earned with service, or obtained through a popular vote. It’s a purpose bestowed upon us by God. Apart from his declaration, we have no purpose. Our purpose, like our existence, comes from outside us, from God. God alone possesses ruling authority in himself. Anything we have comes from him. God alone determines who serves in his presence. If we find ourselves there, it is a gracious gift.