Hard wired for greatness

Reducing people to something ¹less than human — such as holding someone as a political or emotional prisoner — isn't tolerated long by those being abused - particularly if they have a strong belief in their own worth/dignity. 

Why? Since we are image-bearers of the One who is of infinite worth, we can not remain long in a state of being treated as worthless i.e. treated without dignity (unless we have lost complete hope of finding relief). We will seek a way, one way or another, to fill the void and pain of being treated as worthless to relieve that pain -  or die trying. If we ever lose complete hope of obtaining a sense of worth/ meaning/purpose, we will seek to end our lives. 

We applaud the human spirit. We love it when someone, against all odds, refuses to give in to the struggles and setbacks of life and fights back against being treated as less then they are. Instead of giving up, they battle back against opposition, defeat, and pain to eventually rise and ²overcome being mistreated. The greater the struggle, the more we cheer when they overcome it. The sweetest victory is the one that occurs when it seems least likely to happen. This resonates with all of us. We love the underdog who wins! 

This is why the greatest stories and movies echo this theme. We love an epic battle of ³good vs evil in movies like Star Wars (box office sales prove the universal appeal) or any movie that depicts an underdog overcoming overwhelming adversity such as "Rudy", "Hoosiers" or "Shawn Shank Redemption." We love it when these underdogs are in the battle of their life and desperately losing (or considered "losers") then, against all odds, they come back and win. 

Super Bowl LI with the history-making come back of Tom Brady and the Patriots is a classic example. Even if you don't like the Patriots, you still may applaud, quietly respect and maybe even admire their "never quit" approach to the game. At a minimum, you will at least wish your team had the same focus and determination.

Why does this connect so deeply within us all? Why do we cheer the Rocky's of the world so enthusiastically?  

We desire greatness and we cheer those on who achieve it. We are all wired for infinite worth, importance, greatness. To engage it, experience it, and live it! It is who we are meant to be. 

We all look and hope for something more. Even to the point, we live it out vicariously through various celebrity types. We worship "successful" people because it makes us feel important. "Check it out! I know this or that about so and so (sharing something about some well know celebrity)!! Wooowhoooo!!"" 

If we ever lose hope of obtaining some sense of value/importance/worth, we give up and die. We simply must have it.

But why is this? Why is there such universal appeal? 

We are all hard-wired for greatness because we are hard-wired to engage, participate in, and experience GOD who is greatest! 

We are all wired for GOD. And not just any god but the only true God who created and sustains everything; who is of infinite worth, greatness, love, and beauty. A God we were designed to fully engage, experience, and enjoy. 

Because we were wired to engage and experience greatness i.e. God himself - we long for it (greatness) because he is greatest. 

However, we settle for far less. We settle for the finite when we are designed for the Infinite i.e. we pursue the things of creation instead of the Creator. We go about life content - but only short-term; moment to moment, like a bee constantly seeking pollen when we experience the slightest little thing that affirms us. 

Only the Infinite, Almighty, All-Glorious, Majestic, Loving, and Beautiful God can fulfill us! Ultimately, nothing else will do.

For a further discussion on our being created for glory click here.

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Footnotes:

 ¹ We are of great value as God's image-bearers (and therefore need to experience/feel and participate in great value)

² This is why death is so gut-wrenching and puzzling.  Even though many rationalize it away and say it's an inevitable part of life, in our gut we know something is wrong and not as things were meant to be. Death just feels wrong. We have an innate sense, life should never end (and we only give up on living when we can no longer acquire or enjoy the things of life as easily as we grow older or for some other reasons are unable to enjoy the fruits of this life). Even though death is a common part of our existence,  instinctively, deep down, we know death is not a normal part of life but a terrible aberration.  

This is also why resurrection...life overcoming death, is such an exciting and appealing message/reality. This is why the resurrection of Christ was and is so vital. Because he overcame the greatest possible adversity - adversity that killed him - we have hope we too can overcome it in and through Him. 

³ Note what characterizes good vs evil is rooted in being treated or not treated with value; being loved as we wish to be loved, treated as we wish to be treated. Where does this desire come from? It goes directly to the infinite worth of God himself. To explore this more click here. 

Love at it's source

Love can only come from God's image bearers (you and I) in response to God's love for and to them first.

Though we have the capacity to *love, it is only a capacity. In other words we are able to receive or be loved and respond in love if and when loved by God but absent His love we are unable to give love i.e. we can not initiate love. Any true love we are able to give is only the fruit of being loved. We are not the Source, God is...love.

We were never designed or intended to be the source of love but rather recipients and responders to love that in turn can be conduits (vessels) of love.

And very good ones at that. In fact we alone, of all God's creatures, can consciously and deliberately respond to his love in a way no other of God's creatures/creation can. Though we are not hard wired to initiate love, we are hard wired to receive love, than respond back to God in love and also out to others with His love.

We will not (and can not) love others as God has designed us to (sacrificially), unless we first are loved (sacrificially) i.e. unless we are fully connected to God through Christ, the Source of love, life and all things.

Why? Simply stated, God is love, we are not.

But we are like God in that we can participate in the love that God is. We can enter into the union/fellowship of love between the Father, Son, and Spirit as image bearers of God.  But God alone is the source of love and life and all things. We are image bearers that participate in and reflect that love if and when we receive it.

If we are loving others as God loves us, it is only because we are *experiencing - by believing and trusting in - God's love for us first. We can only love others as God loves us, and will when we do.

If you are wondering if any of this is true, try giving sacrificially, none stop for an extended period and see what happens (such as parents of very young children or an infant). You won't last long. We must retreat to "recharge our batteries." The more we are engaged in sacrificial love and the more frequently we must recharge. We simply can not love without receiving it first to "fill our tank" or we will burn out.

Yes but...

Some may argue,"what about someone throwing themselves on a grenade to save others or a parent sacrificing themselves to save their child etc." First, this impulse is an expression of being in the image of God. We are designed not just to be loved but to give love. 

But note the order of the greatest commandment. We are called to love God first and than our neighbors. Why? Because true God inspired neighbor love flows out of God's love i.e. it comes from God. To say it another way, we would have no neighbor love if it wasn't for God, who is love i.e. it's hard wired into our spiritual/emotional DNA. 

So what is going on when someone who does not profess to know/trust in God, yet sacrifices themselves to save another? Because we are in God's image we can derive a sense of significance in giving up our lives for another. This is unlike God who demonstrates his significance in sacrificing himself [as the Son] for others. God is totally complete within himself as Father, Son and Spirit. We are complete only when in perfect union with Him. 

Without God driving our action, it is our need for significance that drives it i.e. doing a sacrificial act is an act of validating me, my significance, my importance, not honoring God i.e. it is not driven by a desire to honor God but to honor self; for self to be honored and praised by others. Though the very impulse we have to give our self for another comes from how we are wired by God, if we do not acknowledge and act for this reason (to honor God), at it's core, it is ultimately an act for ourselves no matter how much it is also for another. 

If we fully understood our ultimate demise in sacrificing ourselves this way without God being a deliberate and conscious part of the act - i.e. doing it for his honor - I propose we would not do the act i.e. we would not act if we knew our action would usher us into eternity resulting in our ultimate and eternal separation from God, His love and all good things. We act because we either believe our act will cause us to be remembered as a loving person or ultimately save ourselves by winning the favor of God (or Karma or whatever).

If we do not consciously and explicitly act for God's honor in our sacrifice, folks would likely say, "what a noble act and person" after our passing; they would not say, "what a great God they must worship for them to be willing to sacrificially give their life for the benefit of another" i.e. to not act for God's honor first and foremost brings praise and approval to ourselves, not to God.

So there are two parts to our truly loving others in the way God loves. 

1. Being like God. We act like him because we are like him...in his image -- which can happen with anyone, whether consciously connected to God or not.

2. Being loved by God **personally - which in turn empowers us to love others because He loves us. This happens only when we are fully and **deliberately connected to the source of love. 

It is the second part that distinguishes us from those who do not look to God for love and desire to honor God out of that love.
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*When referring to love I am not talking about the warm and fuzzy feelings we all experience when things go our way. This is getting love or being loved. I am talking about extending (giving) kindness, care, thoughtfulness even and especially when it costs us something i.e. sacrificial love. We are not willing nor can we give to others in this way unless we have first received the resources to love in this way i.e. we can not give what we do not have and we do not have God honoring sacrificial love unless we received it first. To love in this way, we must be "plugged in" to the bottomless, infinite source of love...and that isn't us.

**God values all his image bearers generally but unless we recognize our need for God, and deliberately trust in and receive his love we will not partake of it personally. We must turn to Him for this to occur.

#love  

Which is it... sinners or like God?!

God's love for ⁴us is without conditions. FULL STOP! i.e. to be fully accepted and embraced by God requires nothing from us. God's love for us is based on someone else meeting the requirements, ¹not us. Accepting the offer that Jesus met what God requires is the only thing required of us. 

However, that doesn't mean there is not a good reason for His infinite love for us. There is a major reason. He values and therefore loves us because we are like him - in His image. 

This has nothing to do with what we do but with who we are, who God made us to be. It is not our trying to make ourselves more acceptable and loveable to Him or others.

This is why He loved us before we lifted one finger for Him. In fact even while we were still in our state of rebellious distrust of Him.

"...but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us..." - Romans 5:8

"...But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—..." -  Ephesians 2:4-5 

Have you ever scratched your head wondering why he would value and love us while we were still in a state of rebellious distrust toward Him (i.e. "sin")? It is because our rebellion did not cancel out or erase our being like God, it only marred and suppressed it - though severely. 

This resulted in our spiritual sight and sense going completely dormant (until His Spirit opens our eyes). We are now "unplugged" from God (the source of all things), broken, and blind to seeing His infinite worth, beauty, and love. As a result, we ascribe the worst possible intent by God on why we struggle or experience loss and pain. The Bible describes this as being spiritually blind and dead to God. 

But our capacity for love, light, and life didn't go away and is still fully intact - we are still like God - even when we don't trust Him i.e. we still are designed to love and be loved and we long for this. We are hard-wired for love, if you will, because God is love and we are like Him, created to be in a community of love with Him. 

God values and loves our being like Him because we still have the capacity to fully partake of the community of love that God is as Father and Son in, by, and through the Spirit. 

This capacity for infinite love never went away; it only ceased to function properly i.e. it went dormant if you will. In our broken and spirituality-blind condition, we now long for the wrong things - instead of the only true thing that can fill our longing for love - because we are blind to the true Source of love and life - i.e. our Creator.

A recap and summary 

Our being in God's image is vital to how God sees us and who we are. This means there is good reason for Him to love us i.e. because of who we are, not what we do. 

We are not just rebellious - aka "dirty rotten sinners." This is true but only half the story - and the far lesser half - once we accept his offer. The more important half is we are still also like God with an infinite capacity to fully engage, delight in, and commune with the Infinite God and experience His infinite love, glory, and joy!!!

Being like God has nothing to do with what we do (our good deeds) for others (God and other bearers of His image) - when it comes to establishing a good standing with Him - but has to do with something about us - i.e. who we are, not what we do. 

God's love has nothing to do with something that comes from us or is offered by us - i.e. something we do in an attempt to earn His love or appease His disapproval. 

Our only requirement is to recognize that Christ did everything necessary to fully restore us to His Father and accept this as a free gift (the essence of the gospel - good news - of grace). 

Do you receive this? If you only know this in your head but haven't fully believed it, you only need to recognize He did everything necessary to restore you so He can pour out His love on you. A love He already has for you that you are blocking by your not believing this good news. Because nothing you can do will restore you to God...nothing - not your abilities or good deeds!!! 

Accept His offer of complete restoration. If you are sincere in accepting and receiving His offer of perfect love, He will legally and immediately restore you now, and ²completely upon His return.

"The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come.' And let the one who hears say, 'Come.' And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price (you can't buy it or earn His acceptance of you)." - Revelation 22:17 

For God to have a relationship with us in the same way the Father and the Son have with each other, we had to be like him in one essential way i.e. we had to be able to receive and return love to God like God does between and among the Father and Son, in, by, and through the Spirit - i.e. God IS love. Love is the central and essential core of who God is!!! We are like Him i.e. we are hard wired for this same love. 

But love for God first, not just between each other. Our love for others must flow out of our love for God. This is why the greatest commandment is to love God first, then our neighbors. 

Does God need anything from us? No! He has Himself i.e. He is complete within Himself.

But when we say he loves us without conditions, that is not to say he doesn't have longings and desires for us and from us. He yearns to commune with us. Why? Because we are like God and God is love. He longs for us to experience the fullness of who He is so, like Him, we too experience it.

He is the source of love, life, and all things and knows our greatest meaning, purpose, and joy is found only in Him!! His calling us to love Him above everything else is because He knows He is our best and desires our best i.e. God is love.

James 4:5 says:

"Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, 'He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us' ”?

Nevertheless, His love for us is without conditions i.e. no deeds are required from us in order for His love to be set on us.

This is possible only because Christ fulfilled all the conditions ³required and necessary for him to remove the barrier between us and love us freely and fully. Even to the point that the Father loves us in the very same way He loves His only eternally begotten Son. Jn 17:23.

"I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me."

So does our love and pursuit of God matter since it's not required?

While there should never be ⁴expectations or conditions put on us for the gifts freely given to ⁵us or on others for the gifts we gladly give them, it is legitimate to enjoy and eagerly anticipate the appreciation from others for those gifts.

When gratitude is shown for the gifts we graciously receive, it delights the giver because they know their gift (and love) is not just accepted but also enjoyed and appreciated.

This reminds us of the 10 lepers that Christ healed and only one returned and showed gratitude. As a result, Christ engaged him further because he demonstrated by returning to Christ that he appreciated what Christ did. Lk 17:12-19.

To hope for and enjoy someone else's appreciation for what we give them is different than ⁵demanding their gratitude.

This also happens to be how God loves us and enjoys a relationship with us. God doesn't ⁶demand our obedience in exchange for His love. He delights in it. We are this way because God is this way. We are in his image.

In order for him to have this kind of love relationship with us we had to be like him as much possible without actually being him.

For a further discussion on why God loves rebels but not rebellion click here 

Are we rebels against God? Click here 

For a further discussion on the solution to our rebellion click here. 

For a further discussion on why God delights in our love click here.

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¹Who met them? Christ!!! For only He could, not us!

²The claims of Christ and His return!! and Knowing God but not fully yet.

³this is necessary because we fail to. No one fulfills the greatest commandment to love God with everything we are and have. Do you? I certainly don't!

⁴Expectations and conditions come from those who need love. God wants our love but doesn't need it. He is love as a community of love among the Father, Son, and Spirit. And when we are filled with His love we are the same way i.e. we don't need the love of others because we already have the perfect love of God.

⁵Who is "us." Is it humanity in general or us who have trusted Christ? It is both. God values all his image bearers by virtue of them being like him. But only those who accept his offer of restoration actually participate in and experience that love as we are designed to.

⁶We demand things from others only because we believe we must have them in order to be loved. God doesn't because He is already a community of love between the Father and Son in, by, and through the Spirit. He doesn't need us in order to be complete (whole) and therefore does not need to demand our obedience. 

However because He is love he delights in our entering into and participating in his love. He seeks - "requires" - us to love him because he knows that is where we are most complete and find greatest joy.

why God calls us to glorify him

Our first impression of God's regular exhortation to honor/glorify Him throughout scripture is it sounds like God is on an ego trip. Honor me, obey me, listen to me. But is this true? Since we are designed by and for God, could something totally different be going on?

Is it possible that the call of God to glorify him is a call to experience our greatest glory and joy? i.e. our greatest sense of value, meaning, importance, etc.? If so, how?

God calls us to glorify Him because He knows nothing else is greater than Him. It is only in and through Him - the All-Glorious One - we experience our greatest glory and joy. Though our greatest glory is not our focus, it is the fruit of beholding and honoring him. 

When we are asked to behold something beautiful, are we not delighted once we do? Yet our delight isn't our goal, it is the result of gazing upon something beautiful. These two are inseparable.

If God were not the God of great glory and we were not like Him (in His image), we would not experience the immense joy of knowing him or have the ability to experience Him in all His glory. We not only exist because he made us but we also enjoy him in a way nothing else in creation can because of the way he made us i.e. like Him, the all-glorious (beautiful) God.

The reason beholding Him results in our greatest glory is because He is the most glorious, beautiful being in the universe and we are like Him.

The reason God "pushes" so hard for us to constantly glorify him is because his love of us is that great i.e. he longs for our greatest delight and joy and knows that is most fulfilled in Him.

The call to glorify God is a call to be loved by Him - to receive and most fully experience his love, joy, and bliss that already exists between the Father, Son, and Spirit. The stronger Gods call, the greater His love is for us. 

If you (i.e. God) know that what you offer is that good and the love you have for the person you make the offer to is that great, you will go to infinite lengths to persuade them to take up your offer to the point of going over the top in your efforts; maybe even coming off as obnoxious or self-centered at times e.g. glorify me, honor me, pay attention to me. Recognizing that nothing or no one else is the source of your joy and meaning etc... You (God) know once they accept your proposal to honor you they will be delighted they did and be forever grateful for your persistence and staying "on" them. 

God doesn't call us to exalt Him repeatedly because he needs us (Acts 17:24-25) to glorify him (knowing and experiencing his own glory has already been and continues to be the essence of his being as Father, Son, and Spirit from all eternity past). He knows we need to glorify him. It is in our best interest when we do because it is aligned with how things operate and who we are.

He also calls us to glorify him simply because first and foremost he is all glorious. For him to call us to glorify anyone or thing other than him as most worthy of our praise and honor is not only untrue but it is to our harm and greatest loss.

The call of God to glorify him is an invitation to experience our greatest delight and joy. A joy that can only be found in the source of ultimate delight and joy i.e. The inter-relational joy and delight found from and within the Father and Son in, by, and through the Spirit.

In summary, there are two parts to God's call for us to glorify him. 

1.    He is all glorious. To find a greater glory in anything other than God is simply not true or possible. He alone is most glorious.

2.    He loves us infinitely and therefore desires our greatest delight and joy.

Actually, there is a third that flows out of the first two. 

     3.  As we increasingly experience God in all his glory, our desire to share it (him) with others grows, thereby expanding or multiplying His glory throughout the world, bringing joy to a greater number and greater honor to Him and greater joy to us. 

Other links that look at different aspects of experiencing his glory and our worth: 

·        Worthless rotten sinners

·        Hard wired for greatness

·        Created for glory
·        Does God value us?

·        Our worth based on what?

·        What is more important doing or being?

·        Gods love based on who or what?

·        Our worth - Gods glory

·        Giving and receiving glory

·        Why in Gods name does he love us?

The empowering of the Spirit

How does the Spirit empower us? He awakens ⁶our spirit by revealing to us His beauty, majesty, and glory, which arouses in us affections/love/longing for Him. 

This grows over time as we see more and more of God's glory (2Co 3:18). The more clearly we see Him in all His glory, the more our love, trust, and obedience grows i.e. the more we are moved/empowered by the Spirit of God's infinite love to pursue and follow Him. 

Why does our beholding God in his glory arouse affection?

Because God is all glorious (beauty, majesty, worth) and we are in His image, created to see and experience our own glory in seeing His. This, in large part, means we are relational beings just like God is, who from all eternity past has exchanged honor, adoration, and love between the Father and Son in, by, through the ¹Spirit.

But what does this have to do with our capacity for affection? To answer this, we must first know what God is like. 

We are told God is love. This begs the question of what exactly is love, and why is God this way?

Let's break it down.

Love is essentially valuing something to such an extent that it stirs up affection for that which is valued. We are attracted to what we value/adore/cherish most. The reason affections are stirred is that the object of our love/affections matches up with and meets in us our desire and need for being valued and loved. 

To be able to value something (God in this case) we must have the capacity to value it (Him). There must be a corresponding quality in us that matches who He is that enables us to enjoy his infinite glory/value i.e. our own sense of glory/value as bearers of His image - i.e. His likeness. 

This is true of us because it is true of God first, and we are in His image i.e. it all starts with God. We are the way we are because God is the way he is.

God is the most valuable, worthy, glorious, beautiful being over and above all other beings/things. In fact, everything beautiful comes from and is sustained by Him. Nothing that is, exists without God, including - and especially - you and I. 

The Son who emanates from this most beautiful God and Father is the Father's express (exact) image, Heb 1:3; Col 1:15; John 14:6-10. i.e. His only begotten -- eternally imaged forth -- Son. Throughout eternity, there has always been the Father and the perfect imaging forth (logos) of the Father's beauty, majesty, and worth - i.e. the Son - and the perfect affection of the Father for the Son and the Son for the Father, issuing forth as the Spirit. 

This means the Son is equally valuable, worthy, glorious, and beautiful as the exact representation and perfect image of this all-beautiful God, who is also Father. To say it succinctly, Christ is God the Son. 

  

Now as the Father beholds this exact and ¹perfect image of himself, He gazes upon and delights in this image - i.e. His Son - and values Him above all else -- since God is most valuable and values Himself about all things -- there is no one else more beautiful, majestic and worth adoring than the majestic and glorious God, resulting in affections for His perfect image of Himself (i.e. Christ) who is equally most valuable, worthy, glorious, beautiful and equally God. 

God, being most valuable and worthy of adoration, loves the perfect image of Himself, his only begotten Son, resulting in praise, adoration, joy, and happiness by the Father for His Son as He beholds His Son's beauty, majesty, and glory. 

His Son, in turn, responds back to the Father, who is the most valuable, worthy, glorious, beautiful source of love and life, reflecting this love back to him.  

This is referred to by many past (and some present) theologians as the beatific vision of God i.e. a vision of delight in loving/valuing the most lovely/beautiful. This creates affections of joy, delight, pleasure, bliss, and happiness in beholding that which is most valuable/beautiful/ glorious, etc. Just think of the first time you "fell in love," except it only grows with time and a greater beholding. 

This beatific vision is so passionate and "solid" that it issues forth into the distinct, separate, and eternal person of the Spirit (the eternal passion/love/affection) of God (Jonathan Edwards addresses this possibly more than other past theologians). Each of these persons - Father, Son, and Spirit - is one in essence (i.e., one God), yet ²distinct in their function/role. 

The Spirit of God is the very Spirit of passion and love expressed between the Father and Son as they gaze upon and behold the beauty of the other, i.e., they experience a beautific vision of the other. The Spirit of God is the manifestation (passion) of this beholding and the very heart of who God is. God is Spirit and He is love i.e. both. These characteristics or qualities are the very essence of God and are inseparably connected, if not synonymous (though they are distinct and separate at the same time, as mentioned above). God is Spirit (passionate love), and passionate love (the Spirit) is God.

For us to behold and enjoy this beautiful God, we too had to be like God with the ability to behold and enjoy him in all his glory in the same way the Father and the Son behold, love, and value each other. As God's created image-bearers (vs His Son, who is the only eternally begotten image-bearer), our sense of perfect value, worth, and glory is bound up in and dependent on beholding and participating in God's perfect value, glory, majesty, etc. In this way, we are exactly like God, i.e., we are beings whose very essence is to partake of, experience, and enjoy perfect, infinite love, i.e., God Himself.

Yet, we have a problem

Because we are designed for the infinite, all-glorious God, when we turned away in the garden -- and still do -- and stepped out in rebellious independence from God, we disconnected (broke away) from him, the very Source of life and love. This left an infinite void or vacuum within each of us. We died spiritually i.e. our beholding, receiving, participating in, and responding to the God of infinite love and beauty was severed and lost. 

We turned away from God. It was not God who turned away and rejected us. We rejected him (and still do), thereby cutting ourselves off from Him and our partaking of his infinite love, life, and beauty. We no longer experience the joy and bliss of participating in the unobstructed ³love and life of God. Our connection (relationship) was severed -- or more correctly, we pulled away and severed it (broke it...we died spiritually) by pulling away from God in rebellious independence -- attempting to be our own god (the lie of the serpent) and seeking to be our own self-sustainer if you will. 

But our capacity for enjoying love and life was not lost. In other words, we are still designed for, desire, and need infinite love. This is who we are; these desires/needs did not disappear. They still exist and are fully intact. This is evident by our constant effort to replace this missing love and fill it with something, usually anything "within our reach" other than God. 

Why? 

We can't control God -- He is God after all -- but we think we can control the creation, which includes our fellow creatures. We try to use the wonderful gifts of God to sustain ourselves and our independence from God. We are rebels to Him and his original design of our being gloriously dependent on Him and in perfect union with Him. 

We can not operate without a sense of value, love, relationship, meaning, purpose, etc. We are made for love (i.e. God) and therefore must have love. It is hard-wired into our makeup by God himself. To use a biblical description, we are made in his image...we are like God - who is the "first cause" of all things - that gives and receives love and extends it to others who are like Him. So much so that when someone feels totally worthless - or loses ⁴hope of experiencing a sense of value/meaning/love - they seek to end their life. 

Absent the true and lasting Source of life and love, we now seek to meet that need and desire in or through created things instead of the Creator of those things - we reject the Creator and no longer directly (consciously) receive love and life from the only One who is the true and only Source of love, life, and all things. We go for the next best thing, ⁵his creation (Rom 1:20-23). This includes our fellow image bearers. 

We now have an infinite (insatiable) void from the absence of infinite love, i.e., God himself -- which explains why we are ever seeking to fill it. All our efforts are now an attempt to replace the Source of this infinite love, now absent/missing (and missed), with whatever we can "get our hands on," i.e., creation, including other image bearers. Not just creation externally, but we use the gifts within us; our skills and talents, as well as the capacity (our 5 senses) to experience and enjoy the external joys and beauties of the creation all around us. We attempt to use anything and everything in creation, within and without, to fill the void of God's absence. 

Our longing for love is infinite because our capacity for love is infinite. And our capacity is infinite because the source - i.e. God - of that capacity designed to fill it is infinite. 

So, back to the original question. How does the Spirit empower us? 

When the infinite love of God comes to dwell within us again as His Spirit, he reveals to us the beauty of God -- demonstrated in and through Christ, awakening and stirring up our love (affections) for Him again. We are fully and perfectly restored back to His infinite love through the work and the grace of Christ. The more the Spirit reveals God's beauty, the more we are stirred up and attracted to him. The more we are attracted, the more we desire him and are moved (empowered) to pursue him in faithful obedience, causing us to experience Him in his infinite love even more. This increases more and more as we draw nearer in increasingly greater faithful pursuit of him i.e. in loving, trusting obedience. And this, in turn, fills us - i.e. his love/Spirit fills us - so we desire others to have what we have. We want others to know this God and his infinite love, too. When filled with love, we are hard-wired to share it. This too is part of being in his image...the desire to pour forth love in the same way God does -- which we also do when we are filled with love - His Spirit.

 

In short, the love of God poured out in us by the Spirit of God moves (empowers) our faithful pursuit of God, who calls us to share this with his other image-bearers as well as all of creation. 

 

For a discussion on being transformed by God's glory, click here. 

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¹ i.e. in, by, and through Love. God is Spirit and He is love. This is who He is, not what he does.  What he does flows forth from who he is. We could say God is passionate, spirited, love. 

 

²We too are in God's image. However, unlike Christ, who is the perfect and eternal image of God, we are created image-bearers. Nevertheless, just as God values the image of himself in Christ, so too he equally values his image in us. 

³So much so, I would argue they are distinct in their understanding and will (awareness of self as a distinct being and in their awareness of the others). Not having different or opposing wills and understanding, but simply their own. They are in perfect harmony regarding what they will because they are one and the same God. 

⁴Some argue that the life of God is the love of God and vice versa i.e. That which enlivens and moves God in all He is and does is his love. God's life consists of the love between the Father and Son, expressed and bound together by the Holy Spirit (the Holy Passion of God). 

This is also suggested in Christ's prayer in John 17 and particularly verses 1-5; glory being the manifest display of this love and life. 

⁵For a further discussion on hope, click here. 

⁶This includes our own created, God-given internal abilities to secure and utilize the external creation all around us in an effort to fill the void left by God's absence.

⁶What is the essence of our spirit? Our sense of value, dignity, and worth as God's image bearers? When we experience these, we come to life i.e. Our spirit becomes alive. It is revived. 

A world of design and beauty

When you see a well-known landmark, such as New York City, sitting in rubble and smoke what do (did) you feel? 




Or a scene of children disfigured from war, bandaged and bloody, missing a limb or a eye etc., 

what is your reaction or feeling toward these... sadness, anguish, fear, anger? But why? What is it in us that causes us to feel these things? 

We all seem to have this internal and universal notion of what is good and beautiful and what it is not. There may be nuances of difference within various cultures, but generally speaking, we all recognize when something is *repulsive versus attractive. Most are drawn to a majestic mountain range and *repulsed by a landscape filled with destruction or someone marred from a violent act or accident.

Where does this sense of attraction and repulsion come from? 

In an accidental world that comes about by time plus chance, this attraction or repulsion should not even exist much less make sense. If there is no design, no grand purpose to our existence, or the existence of anything else, there should be no attraction or repulsion. Therefore, the notion of beauty has to be an illusion if the world happened by chance. 

In a world of design, created with specific intent by a purposeful Designer, our attraction and repulsion make perfect sense. In a world of design, things are meant to be a certain way. When they are not, we sense it and are repulsed. 

And here we are, with an unspoken universal notion of beauty, harmony, order, and a desire for all of these. As much as we try to reason away that we and our world have no purpose, meaning, and design, we cannot deny our experience, desires, preferences, and longings that tell us we and our world (universe) are more than some random cosmic accident. Our desire for beauty is our clue.

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*What is intriguing is we are awed by both the extremely beautiful or terrible. Each provokes a different kind of awe but awe just the same. There is something about seeing or experiencing things that go way beyond us and our everyday experience, things much bigger than us, things that can overpower and disrupt us. We were designed to be awed by something greater than us. We are hard-wired for meaning, purpose, and significance and drawn to anything that makes us feel this way and repulsed from anything that makes us feel the opposite. For a further discussion on awe click here.

We may be intrigued by destruction in the make-believe world of movies or curious about it in real life -- the reason traffic always slows when there is a serious accident - but do not find it pleasant, especially when it involves those closest to us who we care about most.

Crowned with glory and honor

Does God actually value us?  If so, why? After all, aren't we all a broken mess? Yes, we are! Yet he values us never the less. 

"For God so loved (valued) the world - i.e. His creation full of His creatures who bear His image - he gave..." something. 

And what did he give? That which is of infinite worth… His only begotten Son.

Is this not a very clear message of our infinite worth as well?

So how does this work? Why does He value us this much? 

Because He values Himself first. 

But what exactly does this have to do with us? 

He made us like Himself, with the capacity to appreciate and enjoy who He is. Not ¹unlike the how the Father, Son, in, by and through the Spirit, enjoy each other. 

Because we are like Him - in His image - this enables us - gives us the capacity - to value Him; to recognize His infinite worth in the same ¹way He does. He values that we are able to value Him; that we can participate and share in His infinite glory and the delight it brings Him as well as us. He values Himself - His image - in us.

In ²addition, He delights in multiplying and spreading His glory/value to others through us. 

How is this possible?

Next to Him (and His Son) we too have the capacity - as His image bearers - to display his glory in a way no other being or thing can.

In ³Psalm 8:3-5 we are told...

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

    the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

4 what is man that you are mindful of him,

    and the son of man that you care for him? 

5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the

¹heavenly beings (Elohim) and crowned him with glory and honor.

Throughout scripture, we are told God is crowned with glory and honor, yet in this Psalm, we are told we too are crowned with glory and honor. The word here for heavenly beings is Elohim in the original Hebrew. This is a name used for God that is always plural (i.e. God is a community of love and relationship as Father, Son, and Spirit). It is the same word used in Gen 1:27  "So God (Elohim) created man in his own image, in the image of (Elohim) he created him; male and female he created them."  

Of all creation, only we have these characteristics -- glory and honor -- in common with God and are like him in this way. Nothing else, no other created being does.

Because God values himself, he values His image in us and our being able to value him and display His value (glory) to others. This not only brings joy to more image bearers but greater joy and glory to Him. 

Because he is glorious, He designed us to experience,  appreciate and share His glory.

For more on how we are hard-wired for glory, click here. 

For a further discussion on being created for glory, click here. 

For a discussion on how value and love are connected, click here.

For more on what God is like and how we are like him click here and here. 

For more on how God's glory is our highest good click here. 

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¹Qualitatively if not quantitatively.

²This also makes us valuable. This is the functional or practical part to our value. 

Being His image bearer is the basis of our intrinsic value. This is true simply because of who we are i.e. who God made us to be, not because of what we do. This has nothing to do with our actions but with our capacity to be filled with and pour forth God to others. This is a capacity created by God and given to us by our Creator.

When we understand this it changes our view of every human being on the planet. Each of us is in God's image with the capacity to show forth God in a way that none of the other can.

What we are able to do is because of who we are. We have this capacity to do, because of our intrinic value as a bearer of God's image.

To actually live according to this design is the basis of our existential or functional value. This is to live out who we are and were created by God to be. This is our realized value, possible only because of our intrinsic value.

³Psalm 8:5

(ASV)  For thou hast made him but little lower than God, And crownest him with glory and honor.

(CEV)  You made us a little lower than you yourself, and you have crowned us with glory and honor.

(ERV)  But you made them almost like gods and crowned them with glory and honor.

(GNB)  Yet you made them inferior only to yourself; you crowned them with glory and honor.

(ISV)  You made him a little less than divine, but you crowned him with glory and honor.