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.

Being devalued

When you are wronged you are being devalued i.e. you're being treated as unimportant - insignificant, worthless; as if you don't matter.

Why is this wrong? Because you do matter; you have value and significance.

Why are ¹we valuable and significant? 

Because God is the most valuable and most significant of all, and He made us like himself - in His image. Therefore, we have intrinsic value. 

Our intrinsic value is not based on something you or I do but who we are, who God created us to be i.e. like Himself - in His image.

Why did God make us this way?

So we can participate in who He is - as the most significant and valuable being of all - in order to partake of and enjoy the eternal bliss (happiness) within the community of Father and Son in, by, and through the Spirit.

And when we do, we reflect His value and significance back to Him and out to others like nothing else in creation i.e. only we are created in His image. The only other being described in this way is the Son of God. 

To treat someone (who is like God) with honor and dignity - which is rightfully theirs as God's image-bearer - honors God and them for who they truly are, i.e. as significant and valuable. God being the most high, most valuable and significant of all, and humanity being like him. 

Our most basic value has to do with who we are, who we were created to be by the infinitely valuable/supreme God, not in what we do. We can only do, because of who we are 1st. 

And we can do as we were designed to only if and when empowered by God's Love-Spirit. 

Our value may be expressed and displayed by what we do but is not the grounds of it. God and who he made us to be, is the basis of our value.

When we see this we understand why loving God with all we are and have and our neighbor as ourselves is the 1st and 2nd greatest commandment and why the 2nd follows the 1st.

Everything about who we are and what we do must start with God, and return back to Him - for from him, through him, and to him are all things. To him be all glory (honor) forever! Amen!

In summary, there are 4 reasons we are valuable and significant!

1. God is a being of infinite value and significance; we are like Him. This is who we are and has nothing to do with our actions i.e. what we ¹do.

2. Because we are like God we can partake of and enjoy His value and significance in a way no other being - other than himself - can. 

3. And we can bring glory (honor) and joy to God by enjoying, trusting, and living as He designed i.e. in union and faithful pursuit and enjoyment of Him and His directions...

4. Thereby reflecting God's value and significance to others i.e. loving our neighbor as we love ourselves. 

Because this is true of all men and women before they come to Christ - i.e. this is how God "hard wired" us - they can reflect Him in a significant way once they are restored to a right relationship with Him and indwelt and empowered by his Love/Spirit.

They can bear good fruit thereby reflecting and honoring God - their infinitely valuable Creator - like nothing else in Creation can, since nothing else is created like God; in His image. 

We alone are like God - in his image. To not be treated accordingly is a huge violation/ offense against us - who we are - and against our Creator who made us this way.

For further discussions on our value click 

Created for glory 

Worthless, rotten sinners? 

Does God value us? 

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¹though it does explain how and why we live for His honor and glory.

Loving our neighbor isn't hard, it's impossible.

We must have a sense of meaning, purpose, and value to function as we were designed to. Without this, life is pointless. 

We normally obtain this through our achievements. This isn't bad or wrong, but part of how we are wired. However, it is insufficient if we draw our sense of value primarily and only from what we do. Why?

Our primary source of meaning, purpose, and value is God himself. We were created to love God and be loved by God 1st and then to love our neighbors 2nd. To gain a sense of meaning, purpose, and value exclusively or primarily through being valued-loved-admired by other finite creatures is contrary to who we are and how we are wired. Operating in this way does not address our core need for infinite love. Other finite beings cannot give infinite love. By design and definition, a creature is a finite being.

Including ourselves. We can not meet a need for infinite love using finite resources.

Now consider this; if everyone committed to loving, appreciating, and valuing their neighbor as themselves, we would all be loved by our neighbors? Problem solved, right?

"Hey neighbor, start loving me as yourself! That’s what the commandment says. What are you waiting for?" 

The focus of this commandment however is for us to love them, not demand they love us. 

There is one significant problem, however,

we don't love our neighbor the way we love ourselves!  On occasion, we might but in pockets or bits and pieces. By and large, this doesn’t happen and hasn't happened on a global scale. The world is still a mess. War, starvation, fear, distrust, etc. continue unabated.

We've all heard of calls for unity, peace, and love, especially in times of greatest discord and division. There have even been songs written about it. You may recall John Lennon's song "Give Peace a Chance" with the regular refrain, "all we are saying..." as if it is no big deal to achieve. The Beatles also sang "All You Need is Love." The lyrics even said, "it's easy." Or you may recall the song "We Are the World" by several high-profile artists. 

These are all lovely sentiments and worthy goals. The desire expressed by each is noble and right, in fact, it is what we are created for. This is not only what we need but part of who we are and what we are designed for.

Yet, the world is still a mess. So why don’t we all simply do this? If it were easy, I think we would.

The problem is, if we think we can all merely start loving each other without being connected to the Source of love, we do not understand the human condition. This is like being told to give our neighbor a drink of water when our own water is shut off. 

Dr. Larry Crabb once said that most people go into a relationship like ticks looking for a dog. However, there is only one problem... we are all ticks. We cannot give something we don't have i.e. infinite, selfless (sacrificial) love. The only way we can love our neighbor as we were designed to and in the way our neighbor needs us to, is to be fully engaged in loving God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength. 

And this will not, and can not, happen unless we experience God’s love first. Loving God first is the greatest commandment for good reason.  We cannot love God in this way until we see that he has loved us in ¹this way. This fills our cup (or turns our water back on to continue the above analogy). In short, absent God's sacrificial love, we are not able to love our neighbor as ourselves. We are too busy tending to our own emptiness and need for love.  

When "push comes to shove," if God's love is not filling our hearts we take care of number one i.e. ourselves. We only love sacrificially when we see we have been loved sacrificially.  And we have been. Love has a name. It's ¹Jesus!

For a further discussion on how God empowers us, click here

For a further discussion on how God's Spirit works within ours, click here. 

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*Has God loved us with all His heart, soul, mind, and strength?  Yes!! When!? Over 2000 years ago in and through Christ. And after Christ rose He sent his love by His Spirit (that issues forth and flows out of the love the Father and Son have for each other).

condemnation removed - righteousness assigned

We have two subtle and deeply embedded needs. We need relief from guilt, shame, and a sense of failure. We also need to know we are valuable, significant, worthwhile. The former removes something bad from us, and the latter asserts or gains something good for us. 

Though these are separate needs, they are connected. The former (guilt/shame/failure) eats away and diminishes our sense of the latter (value/significant/worth). To fail at a task is to feel worthless; a loser as they say. *Guilt and a sense of worthlessness are directly tied together. 

When we speak of Christ's work for us, we usually focus on the former - God's removal of the just condemnation for our **rebellion. Our greater awareness of this need, more than the need for a sense of value, maybe due to our constant and deeply embedded feelings of guilt and shame. Being ***relieved of pain (shame) can feel more urgent than gaining something we strongly desire (importance) e.g. We are not going to be concerned about our appearance or achievements right after dropping a large rock on our toe. 

For this reason, the need for being valued and significant is not often thought about when we consider all that Christ offers us but is at least equal to, if not more important when it comes to our long-term faithfulness to God. 

Christ lived a life of perfect faithfulness (obedience) to His Father - never-failing and always succeeding - to the point of feeling abandoned by His Father and enduring the most shameful death. This perfect life of faithful obedience is now fully assigned-credited to us as if we lived His life of perfect faithfulness if we accept his offer. When we do we are viewed by God as perfect in our faithfulness - even though we are far from it. 

We are now equally admirable and loved by the Father as Jesus is. This isn't a feeling, it's an objective reality. It is how God sees us if we are in Christ. 

John 15:9 as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.

How would we describe the Father's love for His Son? Whatever way we describe it, it is the same love the Son has for us. This kind of love is not possible unless we are perfect in God's eyes. A perfection lived out by Christ and fully assigned-credited to us. Just as Christ was treated as the rebels we are - wholly condemned - we are now seen as a perfect and complete success the same way Christ is - wholly accepted and approved of. 

For an extended discussion of our guilt and shame, click here and here.

For a further discussion on being hard-wired for greatness, click here. 

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*Depression is the result of a deep sense of failure and guilt, leading to a feeling of worthlessness. If this is left unaddressed, it can lead to suicide.

**i.e. Our rebellious distrust of God. Distrust leads to unfaithfulness in giving God his rightful and due recognition as the one and only all-glorious God worthy of all thanks.

***The most successful people in business I have known over the years said they were driven far more by fear of loss than a desire for gain. 

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.

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.

avoiding guilt and shame

Why do we avoid experiencing guilt and shame (i.e. resist acknowledging our shortcomings), often with great energy and determination? Because guilt and shame is crippling i.e. It makes us feel worthless. 

This goes against everything in us. We are not designed to feel worthless but cherished and loved. To say it another way, we are hard wired to experience greatness/glory (For more discussion in this see the links below).

It doesn't take much 

Guilt and shame is right below the surface of our feelings and easily exposed/surfaced with the slightest provocation. We are walking guilt and shame time bombs with a hairpin trigger. We see evidence of this with some of the items listed below. 

How do we avoid (or respond to) feelings of guilt and shame? Our options:

·      Lash out at those who cause these (play the victim...common today)

·       Avoid those who cause these (find a "safe space" which can be lonely since none of us are perfect i.e. there are no truly safe spaces since we must engage people all the time).

·      Ignore or pretend our shame doesn't really exist i.e. It's all in our head.

·      Recognize and experience the removal of actual guilt and shame (not just the feelings) through the sacrificial death of Christ on our behalf (the only permanent and real solution).

For a further discussion of the cause and removal of guilt and shame click here.

For a discussion on the futility of indulging in guilt and shame click here and here.

For a discussion on our being designed for greatness/glory click here and here. 

Lovable versus lovely

Seldom are we are ¹truly lovely but we are always lovable and even adorable in the eyes of God.

There is something about us that is worth adoring. 

Not only so but we have the capacity to experience and enjoy adoration i.e. to be adored.

What is it about us that is worth loving and adoring? At a minimum -- at our worst and even in our greatest state of rebellion -- we are like God in that we still have the capacity to display something of who he is and what He's like as the ultimate person worthy of all adoration i.e. our capacity/ability to be loved and adored makes it possible for us to be lovely and adorable because we are like God, who is lovely and adorable. 

As His image bearer, we have the capacity to experience and enjoy love and adoration and respond to Him in love and adoration. In fact, in order to love and adore him as much as possible, in such a way that even comes close to his true and full worthiness of all our adoration, we had to have the innate capacity to be loved and adored. 

We are designed to be in a reciprocal relationship with God to receive his love and adoration and respond in kind.  And in so doing we put God on display for others to see and be drawn to him. This capacity - only given to us by God and ²not lost in our rebellion - is what makes us lovable, adorable and of great worth to God and others. 

Nothing else fits who we are 

Finding love and adoration apart from and outside of God is not sufficient. Anything less than the love and adoration of God -- receiving these from and reflecting them back to him -- simply will not do. No substitutes will work because there is nothing else like God -- i.e. There is only one God who is the most lovable and adorable, who created all things and on which all things depend. 

It also fits who He designed us be. We were made to be in a love relationship with this all loving, wise and powerful being called God. Why is the giving and receiving of love and adoration significant? These are core to God's being as Father, Son, and Spirit who love and adore each other and we are like him so we too might take part in this triune community of love, beauty, and overflowing joy that is core to who God is.

He is the most lovely and most adorable and has created us with the capacity to enjoy him as such. That capacity means we too must be lovable and adorable, otherwise, we could not truly appreciate this about him.

When we are truly loved and adored we reciprocate. It is the way He designed us and how we are hard wired. If we do not reciprocate we have not yet truly experienced his love and adoration. 
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¹in fact, we can not be truly lovely as we are designed to be until we experience the love of God who is the Source of love. 

To say it another way, we were never designed to initiate love for God but to be the recipients of his love and to respond to His love and love him in return i.e. we are love responders, not love generators. To say it another way, we are like God -- in His image -- but we are not God. 

²What was lost was our actual loving and adoring of God, not our capacity to love and adore Him. So for all practical intents and purposes, we might as well have lost the capacity to love and adore God. However, if the capacity had been completely annihilated we could (and would) never respond to God when he reveals his love and adoration to and for us. 

Spirit driven

How do we know if a deed is Spirit driven/empowered? 

If it is done to bring honor (glory) to God out of love for and trust in God, i.e. it is a deed that is from Him, through Him, and to Him. It is a Spirit driven response to God's first treating us with love, honor, and value by sending His Son to restore us to the Source (Father) of love i.e. it is driven by our love for Him as a response to His love for us.

Operating in the Spirit is the interaction (reciprocation) between the ¹Source of love and the recipient (us). God - the ¹source - is lovely and trustworthy (and has already fully proven his love in giving us Christ). His great love poured out on us in and through Christ (without our doing anything to provoke/cause it), awoke our hearts to His love, calling (wooing) us to love, trust and follow him in response. Obedience is the fruit of God's love poured out on us through Christ in, by, and through the Spirit of reciprocal love between the Father and Son.

A truly good deed must always start with God, i.e. there must be a lovely and trustworthy object (God) in which the subject (us) can place their love and trust. 

Why? 

1. Without a worthy object, there can be (and is) no love and trust in and by us. 

2. There is nothing more worthy of our complete love and trust other than the infinitely lovely and trustworthy. Only an infinitely lovely object can evoke and draw infinite love out of us.  

3. God is the source/cause of love, not us.

4. By design we receive and respond to love, not initiate it i.e. as God-like creatures (in his image) we are created for love and hard-wired to respond to love. When loved sacrificially, we respond with love.

It (a deed) also must end with God. That which is Spirit driven is also God-focused (targeted). God is not only the cause/source of love, He's also the end/object of it i.e. all that we do is done for the glory of God.

God is both the beginning/cause (the Alpha) and end (Omega) of all our actions/deeds. 

This means we are all about "showing him off" to others. To say it another way, if you are truly God-focused (all about advancing his honor/worth/glory) you are Spirit-driven.

But it doesn't stop here 

This is only where it starts. God is the cause and end of our actions, but to know this fully (for it to be perfected/completed), we must act on who he is for us by faith. Our faith must be perfected/ matured (just as Christ also learned obedience through His own struggles). 

To see, enter into and experience him as lovely and trustworthy in ever-increasing degrees, we must pursue him as such, i.e. by faith. Our (subjective) experience of him as a being that is loving and trustworthy (objectively) is contingent upon our actions rooted in faith, i.e. that he is loving and trustworthy. This goes beyond the proof of God's love already shown by his past sacrifice and involves our present engagement, ongoing experience, and participation in that love.

This doesn't mean he loves us more when we obey him, it means we enter more fully into that infinite, ²unobstructed love he has already totally and fully secured for us in Christ. A love He had for us long before we ever lifted a finger for his sake (Rom 5:8). 

True faith always results in acting upon what we believe. As James said, "...Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works..." There must be movement towards (attraction to and affection for) the object of love, otherwise, our knowledge of God is only in our heads and not in our hearts. 

If there is no attraction, affection, and resulting action, there is no real and true love, i.e. we really don't know his love for us. If we did, we would (and will) act accordingly. 

To truly know his love is to be moved to love him in return, i.e. moved to action-obedience. It is not possible to truly know we are loved by God and not be moved to love him back.

1Jn_4:8  Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (i.e. it is impossible to know the God of love and not be moved to love) 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent (God's love for us moved him to act/send) his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 

1Jn_4:19  We love because he first loved us (and only because he first loved us). 

1Jn_5:2  By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 

1Jn_5:3  For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

Jas 1:22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing...

Jas 2:14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?...

18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! 20 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. - James a disciple of Christ. 

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¹God, as a union of love between the Father and Son, in, by, and through the Spirit is the Source love, life, and all things. 

²Unobstructed only on His side of the relationship. There is nothing that hinders or stops His love for us as His child in Christ, but there is plenty on our side that prevents us from fully entering into and experiencing that love. 

For a discussion on the difference between being spirit driven vs works driven click here.

For a discussion on being loved VS experiencing his love click here.

For a discussion on becoming who we already are in Christ click here.