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Serves as Bishop over 600 ministers and churches in 5 continents
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– “WHAT ARE WE HERE FOR?”
In the 1960s, while Bill was teaching at a Christian college, he asked more than 500 students to fill out a survey with one of the questions: “Why did God create the human race?” Almost 98 percent of the students gave the same answer: for fellowship, for worship or both. Bill says that most Christians would give that answer. While those are two important reasons, he believes that there are other reasons more major and meaningful to God. These reasons make God more personal and real. Bill says that most people understand the reason why Christ died on the cross: it was a way to be forgiven of sins and reconciled with God. But Bill asks a profound question: “What did it do for God?” In his latest book, Bill uses a fictional character, a college student by the name of “Randy,” to tell a story of one man’s journey into the land of revelation and wisdom. Randy is a Christian who feels his beliefs are being attacked on campus by professors and fellow classmates. After researching the Bible for answers, Randy asks God, “What are we here for?” An archangel takes Randy on a trip back in time to the beginning of the earth to give him the answers. God created man:
1. To fill the earth with the likeness of Himself.
2. To reveal His own heart and nature as love.
3. As a free moral agent so he could be tested, tried, purified and conformed to the image of Christ
4. With the power of procreation so He could father a biological Son (Jesus) and not a created son like Adam.
5. To provide a many-membered bride for His Son.
6. To bring the Church as the body of Christ to co-labor with Him as joint-heirs in carrying out God’s purpose.
7. To offer up praise and worship to God.
8. For fellowship with Him.
MOTIVATED BY LOVE
Bill reminds us that God is motivated by love and everything He does is a result of that motivation. God’s original purpose was for mankind to be a creation in God’s own image who would reproduce themselves until the earth was filled with an entire race of beings created in God’s image. After the fall in the Garden of Eden, God’s purpose did not change. Bill says that earth is mankind’s eternal home. In the renewed eternal order to come, Bill says the earth will be the “main street” of Heaven. “The goal is to fill the earth,” says Bill. “We were destined to rule and reign on earth.”
Bill also reminds us that God planned Jesus’s death on the cross before the foundation of the world. “Jesus came to the earth as the second Adam,” says Bill. “He came to recreate a new race of mankind in God’s image and likeness. God’s plan will not be complete until Christ has filled the earth with others of His kind.” God’s love nature was expressed by sending His only Son to die for our sins.
The family of God is called the “bride of Christ.” Bill reminds us that this is a reference to the Church, a “many-membered bride.” The Church was not an afterthought in God’s mind. God had a bride for His Son in His plans before He ever created the human race. God knew He wanted to create a race of beings in His image who would possess free moral agency and the power of procreation. “God wanted to father a biological Son so He could suffer, bleed and die for their sins,” says Bill. “He knew He wanted a bride for His Son, and that He would redeem millions of beings and present them as a many-membered bride for His son. No afterthought.” When Christians begin to understand and appreciate that God’s core nature of love prompted Him to create us, then we will be able to truly understand our purpose.
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