Earth Is Just the "GET READY" Room

by Alexandra Copeland

The Bible is God’s Word. It is a spiritual book for people who want to live a spiritual life in Christ. A spiritual life through the Lord Jesus Christ is available to every living person, but not every living person will want to live spiritually. Some people think that doing so is only a small part of earth dwelling. They feel they can take it or leave it and don’t think living spiritually through Christ will make any difference at all. The truth is that it makes all the difference. We are more than the bodies made of dust. We are God’s sons and daughters. This earth is not our home, we’re just passing through. It’s part of an eternal journey that is filled with more wonder than you and I can fathom. As my great grandmother would say, “this earth is just the get ready room for what is to come.”

IDENTITY
There are three awesomely important words that should be at the forefront of our minds continually. They are identity, destiny, and eternity. God’s spiritual book journals as far back as the very creation of the first human being. God tells us who he was, his occupation, and why he was created. God then took a rib from the first human and made a second one. Her name is Eve. We shouldn’t allow the reality of God taking from one and making two to slip by us. This is precisely what He did when He created us.

Genesis 1:26 says that He had a conversation with Jesus Christ and Holy Spirit, and together they agreed, “Let’s make man in our own image, after our likeness; and let these humans have dominion over their own lives in the earth.” God didn’t give us the right to exercise dominion over other humans, but through the gift of free-will, He’s given us the right to exercise authority and dominion over our own lives. So Heavenly Father fashioned our bodies from the dust of the ground. Now, when you and I think of dust, we think of the dirt we see in our day and time. It has all kinds of contaminants in it, but the dust God used had nothing but His glory in it. Everything about the Garden of Eden was glorious.

After God fashioned Adam’s body, He breathed the breath of life into it. Genesis 2:7 says, “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” God breathed into us. He took from Himself and deposited into Adam, and he became a three-part being: spirit, soul, and body. Just as Heavenly Father took from Adam’s body and made the body of Eve, He took from Himself and made us. This is an identity we will never be able to change. Ephesians 2:10 says we are God’s masterpiece, His pièce de résistance, created in Christ Jesus.

DESTINY
Ephesians 1:3 tells us that through the Lord Jesus Christ, God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms, and He has done this because we are united with Christ. We become united with Christ when we accept him as the Lord of our lives. He’s the head and we’re the body. He leads and we follow. The relationship we have with Jesus Christ through our born-again experience gives us unfathomable access to the Kingdom of God. We have access to EVERY spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. Every means every. And it is all because of the union we have with Christ.

This wasn’t just a spur of the moment idea that Heavenly Father had one day. It was a well thought-out and masterful plan. Ephesians 1:4 tells us that even before God made the world, He knew us and loved us. He predestined us, and not only this, but He CHOSE us! What! This is beyond wonderful and exciting. The Creator of all that you and I survey handpicked us out to be His very own.

He chose us for something special. Ephesians 1:4 says that He chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes. You and I can be a lot of things in life, but nothing will compare to being exactly what God desires us to be. And if HE tells us we can BE something, we can be absolutely confident that it is within our power to be just what He says. This is our destiny, to be exactly who God has called and chosen us to be. It’s not arduous. The easiest thing in the world is to be exactly who God created you to be.

ETERNITY
Eternity is the mold for our jello. It is the unlimited container that holds the enormous potential and treasure of our identity and destiny. It is the only fitting container for such treasures as these. It will take an eternity to live out all that God has placed within us and all that He’s given us. Jesus Christ said in John 17:3 (NLT), “And this is the way to have eternal life—to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth.”  This is our ‘only in the earth’ opportunity. This is the get ready room where we make the choice about who we are going to be—whether we’re going to be the spiritual sons and daughters in Christ that God wants us to be or not. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.