God wants all mankind to come to the knowledge of who He is and what He has done.
God never promised to remove all trials or to give us heaven on earth. However, He has promised that the man who separates himself from the world and gives himself over to the Lord will be blessed.
A sermon about the transfiguration of Christ
Even in the Old Testament, much of the relationship between God and His people was based on love. God definitely loved them and they were expected to respond to Him in like kind. Yet, as today, when they began to waver from the Lord, God started getting their second-best. They gave Him the leftovers.
