1 John 4:15-17
God is LOVE
15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.
Genesis 1:27-28
God Makes Man and Woman in His Image
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Matthew 9:9-13
The Calling of Matthew
9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
For some reason man is a Spiritual Creature...But we are made in God’s Image, so there is little reason for believers to believe that man would have ingrained in himself the spiritual...We have this yearning to find a religion and there are different religions around the world, as people seek meaning and purpose in this world and life...There is Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and others -just to name some of the major religions...So man has this religious impulse...We want our lives to have meaning and purpose, and so we seek...We look to God and Jesus for this meaning and purpose because the things we have on earth do not seem to satisfy us with purpose and meaning...When we get something we want, we then want something else, and when we get that we want something else and different...
Because God is Infinite and nothing is impossible for Him, His Way of thinking and His Complete Understanding of Things is sacred and holy making Him Someone who is worthy of worship...God’s attributes of LOVE and that God is LOVE is part of His Great Mystery...Since God is LOVE, He has this great power to forgive immediately and completely, like He does in the Parable of the Prodigal Son...And to forgive immediately and completely is something very difficult to do when someone has harmed you or hurt you...But God does forgive us in a quick and powerful way...
God gives us freewill to make mistakes, sin, and live our lives out as we wish and we choose...This may not be the best for us, but it is our own choice...And we can go about our lives with or without Him...After all, love is not about control, but about one being who they really are...And so we are allowed by God to make our own choices...
Jesus tells us much about God...He centers His whole life around God and doing God’s will...Jesus is the Word and the Word of God...Jesus teaches us a great amount about the context of God and the Bible and that for thousands of years man has been sacrificing plants and animals and things for our sins and our mistakes...But, we learn that God wants us to have mercy on others, rather than the sacrifices that He has been receiving...
So when we think about meaning and look to God we find that love, forgiveness, and mercy –three things that are Spiritual also help give life meaning...These things make life more abundant...