What God wants us to be in this world is loving, merciful, compassionate, obedient, and righteous people (Micah 6:8). He has given us free will to make our choices and that is His design.
Genesis 1 & 2 record how God created mankind as well as all life on earth. God told Adam to name all of the animals (2:19), cultivate the earth (2:15), grow the human population, and care for every living thing (1:26, 28). God wanted people to enjoy the earth he had created!
God also gave man free will to choose life or death. Deuteronomy 30:19-20 says “…I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice and by holding fast to Him for this is your life…” See also Joshua 24:15, James 1:13-16, Ezekiel 18:30-32.
While God foreknew that Adam would sin, he still gave him (and all the rest of us) the free will to make our own choices. God had already designed a plan of salvation through Jesus’ sacrifice from when he laid the foundation of the world. “…the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” (Revelation 13:8 Young’s Translation) 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 tell us “For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.”
There is no scripture which teaches that God individually predetermines the outcome for any one of us. That would violate the free will that he gave us. He does not determine what career we choose, how much education we receive, or how we choose to act. He would like us to revere Him and have a relationship with him, but that is our choice. He knows that because Adam sinned, we are all carrying sinful baggage. There will be time in the next age for us to desire righteousness and have a real relationship with our God.
Revelation 7:4, 9 tell us that He has predetermined classes of people, not individuals, who will be with him in Heaven. Romans 8:29-30 says “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren; and whom He predestined, these He also called; and who He called, these he also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.” Revelation 3:20 says Jesus stands at the door and knocks, “if any one hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with Me.” God decided from the very beginning that He would invite individuals to become his adopted sons. Ephesians 1:4-5 “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world. . . In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself.”
