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.

Forsaken and abandoned?

When we experience pain - emotionally or physically - our biggest struggle is thinking we are forsaken and abandoned by God.

Yet God's greatest promise is nothing - especially suffering - will ever separate those who trust and love Christ, from his love.

God's greatest proof is sending His Son to suffer what should have been our pain so He could restore us to Himself. This will ultimately free us from all pain in eternity, if not now. 

Because of this, our pain is not only temporary but actually becomes the means by which we are drawn closer to God - but only if our pain is received well - i.e. by faith that God is using our pain for our good. It is preparing us for an eternal glory that far outweighs any temporary loss. 

We may be certain that we are a child of God and believe He loves us simply because He proved it by sending Christ, even when we are constantly bombarded with experiences that seem to indicate otherwise.

If our faith - that God is good, loving, wise, and all-powerful in allowing our pain - is not strong, the difficulties and struggles of life will beat us down when God is actually seeking to build us up by drawing us closer to Himself - i.e. to purify and strengthen our faith through these challenges.

God is not judging us nor has he abandoned us when we go through adversity. Struggles are a part of our ¹broken condition and ²the broken world we now live in (brought about by humanity's general overall rebellion). 

Though we are perfectly loved in and by Christ, we are not yet fully in union with God (we are not yet face to face with Him and in the fullness of His presence and fully glorified or totally free of pain). All of creation (especially us) is presently in bondage, awaiting our total deliverance. 

For a further discussion of how God uses evil for our good click here...and here.

The greater the evil the greater the opportunity for healing/grace click here.

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¹And what is the nature of our existence? We are limited in our understanding and ability to gain what we most need - not only because we are not yet fully connected to God - the Source of life, love, and all things - but simply because we are limited, dependent creatures. 

But we are also spiritually dead (outside of Christ) and disconnected from the Source of all things and therefore impotent in our ability to live as we were designed to. 

We question God's love at the drop of a hat and the slightest breeze of adversity. We are damaged goods - "traumatized" - full of doubt and distrust when life gets hard. 

As a result, we often beat ourselves up and go through life wondering how and why God would love us. Surely, he has every right to abandon us because of our weaknesses, fears, doubts, and failures. And He does have a perfect right to abandon us, yet He chooses to meet us in our weakness, on our level - in and through Christ - to restore us back to a loving relationship with him, not just once but constantly ongoing with no limits. This is why we call it amazing grace. 

This state of current pain is ultimately due to humanity's commitment to being our own God and our disregard for Christ's work for us. 

Our trust in our efforts to win God's (and other's) acceptance must shift to trust in Christ's efforts (work) on our behalf. We must stop putting confidence in our deeds and put it in Christ's. Deeds which are not only complete but completely satisfy our need and requirement for perfect righteousness i.e. to live right toward God and others.

²The world is full of beauty and wonder, but it is also filled with death, disease, destruction, decay, and conflict. God warned us this would be the outcome if we rebelled and broke trust with Him. 

It is no wonder life is often so difficult. Instead of being surprised or put off by adversity, we should anticipate it. Christ said in this world you will have tribulation (adversity). 

But he also said "fear not, I have overcome the world." How? By coming back to life after embracing our pain, suffering, and eventual death so we too would fully participate in His resurrected life one day. 

Adversity has nothing to do with God's love - in the sense that He no longer loves us when we struggle or go through hard times. 

But it also has everything to do with God's love because he uses all things (including and especially the hard things) for our good i.e. to draw us closer to him in greater dependence and trust through those struggles so we might become more like His Son. And that so we would more fully experience and reflect His love out to others i.e. to let our light shine, which is His light shinning in and through us and made brighter by burning away the impurities in us - painful but necessary process.

being righteous, living righteously

Is there a difference between being righteous (our legal status before God) and living righteously i.e. our daily conduct? 

Even though God grants us total righteousness (perfect legal standing) before Him in Christ, he still desires us to ¹live righteously. 

It is only through ¹righteous living we are most aligned and in tune with God ⁵practically. We love others as we are designed to, and best put Him on display - i.e. honor and glorify Him - through loving actions toward others. But these actions do not save us. 

He designed us to be aligned with his will in our everyday conduct, so we might 

1. experience more of Him and His love and 

2. best honor and glorify Him before others. 

3. Advance His ⁵kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

These are the desired outcomes of the good standing He has fully secured for us and assigned to us in Christ. 

God grants us right legal standing, so we might live right. We don't live right to enhance our legal standing with Him (this has already been settled in and by Christ), but so we might partake of Him more fully in our everyday lives. 

He wants us to live righteously so that we might more fully partake of and participate in His love, life, and joy, and pass it on to others more effectively. This brings more attention (honor) to Him, so others might be drawn to Him through us and thereby also find in Him fullness of life by means of our righteous conduct. This advances and establishes His righteous ⁵reign on earth.

The idea of being made right so we would live right is expressed in several places in scripture, but most often and clearly in Paul's letter to the Romans.

‭‭Romans 6:4 ESV‬‬

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

‭‭Romans 7:4 ESV‬‬

Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 

"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (i.e. we are perfectly right with God in Christ). For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us..." - Rom ‭8:1‭-‬5‬

Each of the above 3 passages shows that the desired outcome of God making us right with Him (i.e. righteous before Him legally) is that we might live righteously. 

In fact, in several of Paul's letters (Ephesians, Colossians, ³Hebrews and Romans) the first part of these letters lays out what God has done for us regarding our unrighteous status - i.e. He has made us righteous in and through Christ.  The remaining part of each letter addresses how we are to conduct our lives in light of this and in response to it.

This is clearest in the entire book of Romans, where the first 11 chapters elaborate on our alienation from God and what He has done to restore us in Christ - i.e. the explanation of the good news (gospel). Then, from chapter 12 on, it shifts to how we conduct ourselves in light of this good news. 

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, (i.e. in light of what I have said up to this point regarding our dilemma and God's solution) to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Rom 12:1

The ending phrase "spiritual worship" indicates this is a heartfelt response, not a rigid duty or legal requirement. A response to what? To God providing the righteousness, we must have to be in good standing with the Father, by assigning Christ's perfect standing with the Father to us.

Did only Paul address this? No, Peter, James, and John did as well.

"When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness i.e. in our everyday conduct..." - 1 Pet 2:23-24

This connection by multiple writers isn't a coincidence. Righteous living must always flow out of our righteous standing with God (because we could never meet the requirements of living a perfectly righteous life unaided) i.e. righteous living will and must always flow out of a righteous standing before God. If it does not - if there is no fruit of righteous living - the scriptures call us to make sure we are truly His child. This is clearly implied and stated explicitly in the above and other passages. So much so that scripture tells us if how we live has not changed since we came to Christ, we need to be sure we truly know Him. 

For a further discussion on being right vs living right click here

What is the good news? click here

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Footnotes: 

¹What exactly is righteous living or living righteously? When our conduct is perfectly aligned with God's ⁴design and will.

And what is God's design (will) for us and all creation? That in everything we do and say we honor and glorify him. And in doing so, we also experience our greatest significance - glory. 

And how do we best honor and glorify him? By loving Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neighbors as ourselves. Love (i.e. relationship) is the driving force of righteous conduct. Carrying out these commandments or living righteously - i.e. treating others as we wish to be treated - is the result. 

God's love for us is first, and our responding back to him in love is the result. We will not value or love God above all others until we grasp and experience his value of or love for us. 

God is the initiator and source of love. If we are not plugged into Him and thereby drawing strength from Him, we can never be loving as we were designed to be. When we see and experience his love, we "light up," come to life, bear fruit, and become the true bearers of His image as we were created to be.  

God is the power supply, we are the conduits. He is the treasure, we are jars of clay. He is the vine, we are the branches.

Which comes first, our valuing and loving Him or Him valuing and loving us? We love him because he first loved us.

³There is good reason to believe Paul dictated the book of Hebrews to Luke, who wrote it. The way the letter flows and unfolds - the thorough knowledge of the OT - is characteristic of other letters by Paul (a well-studied Jewish Pharisee), not someone who is a Greek Gentile such as Luke. 

But the style and elegance of the Greek used in the book is indicative of Luke also seen in Acts and Lukes gospel. So some suggest Hebrews was a collaboration between Paul and Luke. 

There are other reasons some believe Paul dictated it. Primarily because, as far as we know, all but one of Paul's letters (including Hebrews) was dictated. Possibly because of poor eyesight from his being blinded by beholding Christ on the road to Damascus.

Also Luke was a highly educated Greek national and medical doctor, fluent in "high" Greek. 

Hebrews was written with grammatical precision, using several words unique to the book of Hebrews. This was uncharacteristic of Paul's other letters but similar to the gospel of Luke. For these reasons, some think Paul didn't write it but dictated it to Luke. Explaining why it has characteristics of both Paul and Luke. The fact that he considered himself the apostle to the Gentile adds even more credibility to this view. 

It is also believed Paul deliberately did not identify as the author since he was considered the apostle to the Gentiles and not looked upon favorably by the Judaizers from Jewish circles within the church. 

Some suggest Paul deliberately left his name off to avoid any resistance to the letters' reception and wide circulation within the Jewish community at large. After all, why would the apostle to the Gentiles be writing a letter to Hebrews?  

But Paul's love for his own people was clearly expressed in Romans chapter 9. Knowing this, it would make perfect sense that he still had an intense desire to reach his people even though God had called him to be an apostle to the Gentiles. 

⁴this is given either as a direct order in writing, verbally, and by Christ's example - all of which are recorded in scripture.

⁵and advance His kingdom most. Our actions matter, either advancing or hindering God's kingdom. 

Seeing God's love in our pain

"that I may know him (Christ) and the fellowship of his suffering's…" - Phil 3:10

What is the "fellowship" of Christ's sufferings that Paul desires to take part in - and we, by his example, are also invited to partake in? 

Whatever it is, we must participate in (experience) the "fellowship of his sufferings" to have a deeper understanding of Christ, i.e., who he is, what he did, and why he did it. This is directly connected to knowing him better, as indicated by the above opening comment "...that I may know him..."

What about our suffering? Does our suffering help us to see and know Christ better? How?

Stated simply, if we are to know and appreciate Christ more fully and the depth of His love, we must see and enter into Christ's suffering through our own, i.e. we share in (fellowship with) His pain through ours. The more we suffer the greater opportunity we have to understand and appreciate Christ's suffering.

But how are our pain and experiencing Christ's love connected?

Our pain helps us to more fully understand, appreciate, and sympathize with Christ's pain. The greater our pain, the greater our potential understanding of Christ's, i.e. we can relate to Christ's pain better because of our own. 

Whenever we are in pain, we should reflect on Christ's ³struggles and all the spiritual, emotional, and physical pain he went through for us. The more pain we experience the more deeply we can "enter into" and partake of His - if we choose to and let it.

The more we see and enter into His pain through our own, the more we can also see the depth of his love that moved Christ to suffer on our behalf. 

Seeing the depths of his love in turn causes us to love him more.  

If you wish to love him more, be grateful for your pain, if only because of how it can reveal to you Christ and the immense depth of His love for you more fully. How? By his embracing the pain you and I deserved - that He did not deserve - so we might see and experience His immense love even more.

To expand this further, the more we see His pain, (ultimately caused by us choosing to be our own "god" when we are not) the more fully and deeply we see the ¹greatness of His love that moved Him to embrace our pain (and the consequences of the pain we cause others) so He might free us from condemnation rightfully due us for the harm/pain we cause others. 

Grasping the depth of Christ's pain rarely happens without us first going through our own pain. The greater ²our pain, the more fully - and the greater the opportunity for us to appreciate ²His i.e. we are better able to understand and "fellowship" with Him in His sufferings through our own suffering, and thereby also more fully enter His love. 

Pain is a two-way street for both Christ and us

We are also reminded that because of his pain, he understands and appreciates ours better as well. He can better fellowship with us in our pain because of His own i.e. We are united with Christ in and through our mutual suffering. 

Amazingly, Christ chose to identify with us in this way! We will have this in common with Him throughout eternity and will be reminded of this - of His immense love for us - every time we look upon Him and behold the scars He carries and experienced for us.

"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." Heb 4:15-16

Pain can help produce two overriding positive outcomes if we let it. 

1. It can humble us by revealing the depths of our need and inability to cope with the pain alone, i.e., without God.

2. It can cause us to more fully appreciate the sufferings of Christ and the greatness of his love that moved him to suffer on our behalf.

These are two vital reasons we should never shrink back from pain and suffering, but instead be thankful for it. In doing so, this enables us to more fully see and take part in his great love.

If you want to know your level of trust in Christ and the strength of your love for Him, ask yourself how much pain are you willing to go through for His sake? 

This is a question Christ asked of himself while suffering for us, and he answered with a resounding "whatever it takes." His willingly going to the cross for you and me was the result of His saying yes to pain. 

How much pain am I willing to go through for His sake?... is a question we may wish to ask ourselves. One I ask myself often.     

Christ asked that question and answered by giving up his life, and allowing this to disrupt His eternal union with the Father. 

"“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.."

"By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers."

For a further discussion of how God uses evil for our good click here...and here. 

The greater the evil, the greater the opportunity for healing/ grace click here.

For a discussion on the key lesson from the book of Job click here.

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¹When people question the goodness and love of God because of all the pain in the world (including their own) they miss the bigger picture and cannot see that Christ took on the pain of the world and let it kill him so he might ultimately free the world and us from it. Pain is not the final word regarding evil. Christ is!

 

The big question isn't why there is suffering and why God allows good people to suffer, but why God allowed Christ - the best and only perfect person - to suffer. 

And maybe a more important question... what is the Father saying to us and about us by allowing it? Hint...He loves us that much.

Until we answer these questions, we can never fully understand, accept, and willingly (gratefully) embrace our own pain and the world's pain. 

We are so jaded towards God that we forget that God so loved the world that he gave. The greatness of love is measured by the greatness of the gift and the sacrifice one is willing to make to give it, i.e. the more the gift costs, the greater the evidence of the givers love.

And what did God give? His very own Son (think of Abraham being asked and willing to sacrifice his son Isaac). The Son of his infinite and eternal affections. 

Christ's death was not barbaric; it was an expression of extreme love and a willingness to take on our suffering so we might be forever free from it... but only if we will accept His offer.

If we do not, there is no other solution!

The whole notion that the infinite and all-powerful Creator and Sustainer of everything would take on human form and even consider going through undeserved pain for our benefit is mind-boggling when we stop and reflect deeply on this. 

After reading this, I encourage you to do just that. Think deeply about these things often. Ask God to give you a fuller vision and understanding of His love for you through His and your pain. Let them seep deeply into your very being and transform you and your love for God. 

The Father and Son fully understand pain because they fully embraced and experienced it themselves. The Father embraced the pain of giving up the Son of His eternal affections and the Son embraced His greatest pain by allowing it to separate him from the eternal affection of His Father for a time. This "severing" of their relationship was a far greater pain than any physical suffering.

The only reason that people continue in pain after this life is that they refuse to see and receive God's remedy, which is Christ and all He suffered (willingly) at the hands of ungrateful and wicked men for our sake.

²Particularly for condemnation, persecution, and rejection.

³Has someone closest to you ever betrayed you? Have you ever had anyone twist your words, misrepresent you, speak ill of you, or not come through on their commitments or promises to you? Have you ever been unappreciated for sacrificial service to others? Have you ever had anybody forsake you in your greatest hour of need? Christ experienced these and far more with one big difference. He never complained and did nothing to deserve it. And He did all this for us so we wouldn't have to. And to also honor His Father. 

God is nonstop love, beauty and glory!

As the Father and Son behold the infinite beauty and glory of the other they experience infinite, overflowing joy, and delight in, by, and through the Spirit. 

Each is the very heart and center of the others affections. We could say each is the unceasing, passionate "heartbeat" and central ¹focus of the beauty of the other. The proverbial apple of each others eye, if you will.

They are passionately moved to extol or glorify the ¹¹other and lazer focused on doing so. 

They have always delighted in each ¹¹other from all eternity past and will continue for all eternity future with or without us.

By beholding and loving the glory of the other and experiencing love and delight in that beholding, each member of our ⁶three person God participates in and experiences their ⁶greatest joy and glory (worth, significance, etc). 

Joy, love, and delight are the fruit of their beholding the infinite glory and beauty of the ¹¹other. 

Experiencing infinite delight, joy, and significance in beholding each other drives all their actions. Bringing greater joy and significance (glory) to the other (among and within the Father, Son, in, by, and through the Spirit first, but also ⁹overflowing to us as His image bearers) is their primary aim. This is what moves God to do everything He - they - do. 

To behold the perfection of the ¹¹other evokes infinite admiration, joy, delight, and love for the other in, by, and through the Spirit. 

So what does any of this have to do with us?

God calling us to love Him and our neighbor is simply an extension and reflection of what God is like, i.e., this is who God is, and He calls us to reflect Him as bearers of His image.

God is ⁸full because he already is - and has - perfect joy and infinite worth (glory) within Himself as the most significant (glorious) being of all. From Him everything else came and depends on Him for existence. 

Actually He is not just full but ⁹overflowing in infinite love. And this is because of the perfectly magnificent beauty, majesty, and infinite glory of each person within the Godhead. 

The Spirit is God, manifested by passionate love (breath) between the Father and Son. This is who God is. He is infinite, passionate love i.e. He is Spirit. 

The Spirit is the life (energy) and wind (power) of God. The Spirit is the very breath of God. Without breath, God - like us, no longer functions. To have breath is to live, and to live, we must breathe. So it is with God. Without the Spirit, there is no breath, and without breath there is no God.

The Spirit is central and vital to who God is. The Spirit's role is unique from the Father and the Son's role and vital to the relationship between them, as well as emanating from and manifested by that relationship.

With all these aspects of God's being combined means each person within the Godhead is continuously giving and receiving perfect love from the other, who is equally perfect in beauty and love, yet also unique in function. 

Each loves perfectly and evokes in the other perfect love and delight because of their unique and perfect beauty and glory. They are all God together, not separately. For God to be God, they all must be together in a perfect union of beauty, harmony, and delight. 

The Father and Son are a union, community, and fellowship of nonstop love and motion in, by, and through the Spirit. An overflowing, infinite, perpetual self-sustained love ⁷generator, if you will, that never stops "running" because of the infinite beauty and worth they each possess individually. This dynamic has always been from all eternity past, before creation ever came into existence. 

What about created things and persons?

Creation is an outward manifestation of who God is as infinite and perpetual love/Spirit. God does not need creation. Creation needs God. Creation exists only because God exists as the God of love. If there were no God, there would be no love or creation. Nothing else would be.

God is the "I AM" i.e., the self-existent One who has no beginning or end. He depends on no one or any created thing because He has and delights in Himself as Father and Son in, by, and through the Spirit. Everything and everyone else comes from Him, exists by Him, and points back to him.

"For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.

To Him be the glory forever! Amen" - Rom 11:36

Because of this, God's love is other-oriented and focused, not self-focused. First between the Father, Son, and Spirit, but also out to others who are like him, i.e. us, who bear his image. 

In short, God is not selfish - as a community of 3, with each focused on the infinite beauty and glory of the other - but is full and overflowing. 

Our 3-person God is continuously engaged in giving, receiving, and overflowing in love within the community of Father and Son, in, by, and through the Spirit. God has never been alone (or lonely) from all eternity past, nor will He ever be. He is not moved to get or take but only to give because He already is all glorious, always receiving and overflowing with love from and for another. 

When a husband beholds the beauty (glory) of his wife and partakes of her love, and a wife partakes of and experiences the strength (glory) of her husband, it evokes within each a delight for the other. A delight so great that their union is like another person (as well as children who bear the image of the parents as well as God's image). They are no longer two separate individuals but a new and distinct union of love. 

So it is with God, who, unlike us, is perfectly beautiful, all glorious, infinitely strong, and continuously overflowing in love.

In God, all these qualities are perfection - nothing can be added to or taken away from God for Him to be all that He already is. 

All of this is without end, i.e., we can never reach the full height, breadth, or depth of our experience of the infinite God...ever. 

Throughout eternity, we will increasingly experience and participate in more of our infinitely glorious and beautiful God. 

In light of who God is, He must be and is the center of all things. He is the most valuable, worthy, significant, glorious, and lovely of all beings or things. 

Without God their would be no beauty, no delight, no joy, no love, no creation, no us... in short, no life, i.e., there would be no-thing. 

Everything else that is - other than God - is because of God. Nothing would be if He were not. 

The very existence of everything else is solely because of this dynamic, vibrant, nonstop overflowing God of love as Father and Son in, by, and through the Spirit. 

This is why He is always calling us to glorify Him. It's not because He needs us, but because we need Him to participate in all He created us to be and experience i.e., we are created to experience Him in the fullness of His beauty-glory by participating in the glory and union of the Father and Son in, by, and through the Spirit. We are designed to find our greatest glory and joy in experiencing His. 

His calling us to glorify Him is the most loving thing He can do for us - as well as the most honoring thing we can do for Himself. 

Our praises of him throughout eternity will be the spontaneous response to beholding him in all his majesty and glory. Just like the praises of the Father for the Son and the Son for the Father in, by, and through the Spirit. 

Life without God:

To live in order to take or get (vs give) is static and stagnant. It centers on and ends with those who ²seek to operate this way. It is like the dead end on a one-way street that ends with me (or anyone who operates without God's love moving them to love others). There is no flow through of traffic because the street does not connect to any others. It is a dead end.

To use another analogy, it is like the Dead Sea in Israel. There is no life in it because it's isolated with nothing flowing out. The opposite of the Sea of Galilee, which is full of life with a source and exit for that life to come and go.

Like the Sea of Galilee, God's life is also dynamic, not static, because of the infinite beauty of the persons within the Godhead. Each is infinitely beautiful and glorious; each captures and delights the heart of the other and is captivated by the other's infinite value and beauty. 

This results in love always flowing back and forth between, within, and among our Triune God - out to the other and continually received (reflected) back in admiration and delight. The infinite worth and glorious beauty of God is what drives and moves God Himself and everything else as a result.

God is life and love because he is the infinitely beautiful and glorious community of Father, Son, and Spirit.

What happens when you add us to this divine mix or dance of love and delight? The love and delight only increases (multiplies), not diminishes i.e. love flows among the Father and Son, in, by, and through the Spirit then out to us and back and forth between a greater number of others (who are in His image and as close to being like God as possible without actually being Him i.e. we are like Him in giving and receiving love but unlike Him, in that He is the Source of love and we are not i.e. we are the recipients and conduits of love not the cause).

We have the ³capacity to enter into this dance of divine love because we, ⁴like Christ, are like God himself... in His image. As His image bearers, we are valuable and infinitely valued because we can display God (who is of greatest worth) in a way nothing else can (except Christ Himself, who alone did and does honor His Father perfectly above all others). 

Our capacity to bring Him, who is infinitely valuable, to others makes us valuable. In Christ, we become the ⁵focus of God's infinite affection in addition to the love between the Father, Son, and Spirit.

Does bringing or adding more to this divine dance "thin out" God's love? No, it increases, expands, or multiplies it just like the love of parents can expand, increase, and multiply with each additional child. But unlike earthly parents, God is the infinite source of life, love, and all created things. 

And our love for each child is unique because of the uniqueness of that child and how they each can uniquely reflect back to the parents love and overflow that love and their image out to others in a way that other children can't.

The more children there are, the more facets of God's glory and affections are displayed, experienced, and enjoyed.

 

What is the beatific vision? Click here to find out more.

For more on the self-sufficiency (aseity) of God, click here. 

For more on Christ being the only begotten of the Father, click here. 

For more on how God is relationship, click here.  

For more on whether God is dependent or independent, click here. 

For more on the life, love, and Spirit of God, click here.  
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¹this is the model we build a Godly marriage on. Marriage best works as God designed it to, when each is focused on the other, vs on themselves... with God as the central and primary focus (vs the only focus) and the source of love to and for each.

²Which is all of us until our disconnection from God - the source of life and love - is repaired and we are fully restored to God's love.

³I say capacity because to enter into this Union, we first must be restored to God through Christ due to our rebellious and ongoing distrust and alienation between God and us, created by that distrust. 

This alienation must be resolved and removed so we can be fully restored and reconnected to the Source of life and love. Once it is and we are reconciled and restored, we become the full and perfectly qualified recipients of God's unobstructed perfect love as we were designed to be. 

As we come to embrace and rest in His perfect nonstop love, we are increasingly able to partake of that love in the same way the Father, Son, and Spirit do. This goes to the next level when we are glorified with God in ever-increasing glory for all eternity.

There is legally no longer any obstruction between God and us if we are "in Christ." It is gone forever. So much so that the very Spirit of God in all his holiness and infinite love now indwells us, i.e. We are the temple of God, and He now lives in us as perfectly restored and clean vessels. Without Christ legally purifying us, He could not and would not be restored and reconnected. 

However, practically - on our side of the union - a weak connection still exists because of our lack of perfect trust in the Father. Because of Christ, we have perfect access to all God is, but we must "plug in" by faith. Distrust is like a bad connection in a wire, causing it to regularly short-circuit and hinder the power from flowing freely and consistently through it to its intended end. But this is a separate matter. For more on this click here.

⁴The Father "beget" the Son from all eternity past, not at a point in time (like us), hence He is the "only begotten" Son. For a discussion of this click here.

⁵That infinite affection moves God to do whatever will best draw us closer to him, so we might experience more of Him and participate in more of His love. 

This often includes tests and trials, pain and suffering...but not always or forever. All pain is temporary if we are plugged back into God through Christ. 

When we gain from the pain what we need to (i.e. a greater humility and dependence on God), we rise above that pain. The circumstances causing our pain is often still present but it's sting is removed because we receive it as it truly is - i.e. from the loving hand of God for our ¹⁰increasing union practically for our highest good and His greatest glory. Similar to the pain we experience in a workout. It hurts at the time but we know the outcome is good i.e. increased strength. To use a familiar expression, "no pain no gain." 

To say God is love is to say God is dynamic passion or affections for another resulting in an outward focus and loving action toward others. As the Father beholds the glory and beauty of Son and the Son beholds the glory and beauty of the Father, their delight, joy and passion for each other manifests as the Spirit. The Spirit of love, joy, and delight between the Father and the Son is God for God is love and He is Spirit.

In the original Hebrew Spirit means breath (movement of air or wind) among other things i.e. the passionate and affectionate breathing of God for another who is infinitely glorious and beautiful.

Spirit (Greek)
Πνεῦμα (Pneuma)
Noun - Nominative Neuter Singular
Strong's 4151: Wind, breath, spirit.

The value of the Father, Son, and Spirit is so immense, and their delight in the other is so great that it moves them to bring joy to each other. 

⁶We could say that love and delight are so real and intense it tangibly manifests as the Holy Spirit - i.e., the holy passion of God - as the 3rd person of the Trinity. We could argue this is in fact the over all manifestion of God, who is both love and is Spirit. The very Spirit - passion/life - that binds the Triune God together.

⁷an analogy comparing God to a finite inanimate object - a generator - only gives a tiny sliver of truth, at best, in describing the infinitely overflowing God of perfect beauty, love, delight, and action. Clearly, God is infinitely greater than anything created. Even more so than something mechanical. He is the cause and Creator of everything that is not God. He must be greater, for without him nothing else would exist.

⁸our fullness, love, and fruitfulness as His children and bearers of His image is the overflow of beholding and participating in the beauty and glory of God in the same way He beholds and participates in the beauty and glory between and among the Father and Son in, by, and through the Spirit.

⁹This resulted (and results) in an overflow of love and glory to others like Him, as well as to all the rest of creation.

¹⁰ vs legally, which is not changing but completed. Because of the work of Christ - and it being credited to us as a gift - we are seen by God as perfectly righteous. While at the same time we are becoming more righteous practically in our daily conduct, i.e. Our righteousness legally is complete while our righteousness practically is incomplete, ongoing, and increasing. Practical righteousness will not be completed but will continue until we are fully glorified in eternity.

¹¹Being other focused is central to who God is. This is only because God is 3 persons within one being. 

While God is only one being, the distinction of persons within the Trinity means God is other-focused versus self-centered. 

While one being consisting of 3 distinct persons is difficult to comprehend on one level, we see a picture of this in the family unit.

In a healthy marriage, each partner is focused on the other's benefit. The result of this loving union is children. When a married couple has a child, a primary part of their focus of care and affections is now on the child. While at the same time maintaining the main focus on their marriage partner i.e., each other. In order to be their best for the child, they must continue to be the best for each other first.

The analogy is limited and breaks down - i.e., it is not a perfect picture of our triune God - because the husband and wife are finite and must look outside themselves to participate in infinite love offered only by God, the Creator, who alone is infinite in love.