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Welcome to Day 2199 of Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me. This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom What Does God Want – God Still Wanted A Family – Daily Wisdom Putnam Church Message – 01/29/2023 What Does God Want? -  God Still Wanted A Family Last week, we began a new series, which should take us close to Easter in our messages. The overall theme of this series is to answer the question: What does God want? The answer we discovered was that God wants you along with every person who will ever live. In other words, God wanted a family. God wants co-workers. God wants you to know who you are/ and why your life has value to him. /He loves you and desires that you also love Him. In last week’s message, I made the point that God equipped people to image Him on earth. He did that by sharing his attributes (his qualities and abilities) with all humans. Now, both the supernatural beings in the unseen realm (angels) and humans are to be an imager of God. As wonderful as that was (and is), it’s where things get interesting—and scary. One of God’s qualities is freedom—what we often call free will. Because humans have free choice,/ it resulted in three major rebellions in the first 11 chapters of Genesis. So, if you’ve ever wondered why there’s evil in the world, here’s the Bible’s answer. We have much to cover today, so hold on to your hats. (Grab Hat) Rebellion #1 – Stand Up #1 God knew what it meant when he decided to share his attributes with his children. God knows everything, so he understood clearly what would happen. God had made the same decision earlier with the heavenly family he had created. They have abilities like intelligence and freedom. They got those gifts from their Creator. Sooner or later, God knew that his gifts would be misused or abused. /He knew full well that, /though his children (in the spiritual world and on earth) were like him,/ they were not him. They were less than him. They were imperfect, whereas He is perfect. So, at some point, one (or more) of his children would either make a horrible mistake or act in thoughtless self-interest, rebelling against something God wanted to be done (or not done).   That’s precisely what happened in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve rebelled. They violated God’s command not to eat from one of the trees in the garden. As a result, they sinned and lost eternal life in God’s presence. Every human born after that was born outside Eden, estranged from God. The apostle Paul summed it up well: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23).   An even earlier rebellion brought on the Eden tragedy. One of God’s supernatural children chose to dishonor God’s decision to have a human family by tempting Eve, hoping God would destroy her and Adam. (Bulletin) Listen as I read Genesis 3:1-7. The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?” 2 “Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,”...