LITTLE ROCK — DEAR REV. GRAHAM: If God knows everything, then doesn’t that mean He must have known the human race was going to sin against Him? Why, did He even create us? If I’d been God, I just wouldn’t have bothered. Or maybe He didn’t know what we were going to do.
- J.D.
DEAR J.D.: You’re right when you say God knows everything, and yes, He knew that Adam and Eve would give in to Satan’s temptation and rebel against him. God warned them in advance what would happen, but they did it anyway.
Why, then, did God create us? The Bible doesn’t give us a detailed answer, but it does tell us that love is at the center of God’s nature. “God is love,” the Bible says (1 John 4:16). But God’s love needed to be expressed, and so He created individuals He could love and who could love Him in return. The Bible says, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us” (1 John 4:10).
We weren’t meant to be puppets or cold lumps of clay. God put within us the capacity to love Him. But something went wrong, and that “something” was sin. Instead of loving God, we loved only ourselves. Instead of freely serving God, we became slaves to our lusts and desires. Our relationship with God was broken, and death entered our lives.
But here is the remarkable thing: God still loves us, so much that even before we were created, He planned to send His Son into the world to bring us back to Himself (see 1 Peter 1:20). Do you know Him? Open your heart and life to Jesus Christ, and discover the joy of knowing God personally, both today and forever.
Write to Billy Graham in care of Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, 1 Billy Graham Parkway, Charlotte, N.C. 28201 or visit the website at billygraham.org
ActiveStyle, Pages 26 on 11/19/2012