Churches In Action: The Answer To A Broken World?Sample

God’s Purpose for Humankind When God created the world, he called it good. His creation was suitable for His purposes and reflected His character. He made sure everyone and everything had enough. Everything had its place and a sense of harmony, and well-being prevailed. Tragically, we see how humankind was seduced into believing their lives could be better by living independently of God’s oversight. Rather than manage creation on God’s behalf, we seek to master it for our own benefit. This stubborn drive for independence causes much of the difficulties we experience. After the Fall, our relationship with God became broken, as did our relationship with creation, with others and with ourselves. Relationships are now distorted by selfish desires, the world has become a less hospitable place, and work - for which we were created - has become harder and less instinctive. Whereas God intended the world to be a place in which all thrive, the experience of many is now not of provision but of poverty. God’s creation is a material realm and is the arena in which His great drama is acted out, which indicates that the physical matters. To Him, material well-being and spiritual well-being are related to each other. In your own Christian journey, how do you seek to grow in your sense of purpose and calling under what matters to God? The aim of this bible study is to develop in each of us a better understanding of what it means to be made in God’s image, bear His character, and be co-workers with Him. We will explore what human thriving looks like from God’s perspective while also reflecting on our current experience, and that of humankind, which generally falls short of God’s ideal. This will lead us, finally, to consider what specific actions God might be asking each one of us to undertake.