When we begin to see creation and all it contains as it really is, suffused with and maintained by God’s power and glory, we begin to understand why God declared it good and mankind, created in God’s own image, as very good and why God loves all of his creation with an everlasting love. And when we realize that although God is saddened by the manner in which mankind has treated his creation, he was not surprised by it, since he created us with free will, knowing that we would misuse it. And, knowing that, God’s plan from the beginning was to take on human flesh and live among us, experiencing the full human experience, both good and bad, and suffering the wages of sin, although he himself was sinless. That God willingly took on sin’s punishment on behalf of all humankind to demonstrate unmistakably his unfathomable love for us.

Then we can begin to understand that and learn to share that love for all of God’s creation, seeing and experiencing it as God does. When we can do that we have, in a sense, become what the Eastern mystics call enlightened. But then when we have experienced God as a personal friend, rather than an amorphous, impersonal force, we have achieved what God calls the ultimate enlightenment. We have, as Jesus said, become one with him and with all mankind. Hallelujah! What a thought.

“God has allowed us to know the secret of his plan, and it is this: He purposes in His sovereign will that all human history shall be consummated in Christ, that everything that exists in Heaven or earth shall find its perfection and fulfillment in Him.” (Ephesians 1:9, 10 JBP)