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Please click on a question below.
# 1 Why are our questions important?
# 2 How can we satisfy our deepest need to love and be loved?
# 3 What words allude to our need for relationship?
# 4 What words allude to our need for impact?
# 5 When we do not let God meet our basic needs, what are we inclined to do?
# 6 Why did God create human beings?
# 7 Did God have a plan in mind when He created human beings?
# 8 Why are human beings created in the image of God?
# 9 Why is it important to balance assurance of God's love with fear of the Lord?
# 10 After crossing the Red Sea, why did the Israelites fear the Lord?
# 11 Does God balance mercy and justice?
# 12 What does it mean that we are made in God's image?
# 13 How do we know that relationship is important to Jesus?
# 14 What does it mean to have “right-standing” before God?
# 15 As we come to believe and trust in Jesus, what happens to us?
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Asking questions is a crucial part of human development. In the same way, asking religious questions is a crucial part of spiritual development. Questions are openings in human hearts that acknowledge our thirst for relationship and impact.
Jesus is the one who frees us to be the person He has made us to be. We are free to grow, but we do not grow without struggle. In the midst of our struggle, if we are honest with ourselves, we have some serious questions about life:
- Why isn't my life working like I thought it would?Is this all there is?
- With all I've got, why do I feel so restless, empty or lacking?
- Why can't I have it? If only I had (whatever!) I could be happy.
- To whom do I belong?
- If I don't care for and protect myself, who will?
- How can I gain control?
- Why do I feel so scattered? or driven? or compulsive?
- What comforts me? challenges me? confronts me? encourages me?
- What is the meaning of life? of my life?
- What is my purpose?
- What makes me feel alive?
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Ultimately, our deepest expression of this need to love and be loved is satisfied in a personal love relationship with God that is mutual and free and interactive. Contemporary language has often described this yearning as a God-shaped vacuum at the core of our being. St. Augustine put it this way: “Our hearts are restless, O Lord, until they rest in You!”
When this basic need is satisfied in a true person-to-Person love relationship with God, then our acceptance and love for people increases. Reciprocally, our interaction with other people in a healthy human manner can open us to loving God in fresh new ways.
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Our longing for relationship is a basic human need. There are many words that allude to our need for relationship, as expressed in our desire for:
- acceptance • belonging • loving and being loved
- comfort • safety • security
In Scripture, when God meets this need, He is described as our:
- Father • refuge • comforter
- shepherd • Savior • Lord
This relational yearning is a legitimate need of each person. It is so basic that this need must be met. If it is not met in a life-giving and healthy manner, then we will attempt to meet this need with life-robbing and unhealthy substitutes.
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Our longing for impact is a basic human need. There are many words that allude to our need for impact, as expressed in our desire for:
- purpose • assertion • value
- equality • dignity • significance
In Scripture, when God meets this need, He is portrayed as:
- creator • judge • restorer
- way • truth • life
Love of God and love of neighbor cannot be separated, only prioritized. In the same way, these two basic needs, relationship or being and impact or doing cannot be separated, only prioritized; our need for love is deeper than our need for impact.
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We yearn to control people, places and things, especially when our need to be in relationship and our need for impact are not immediately met in God. We search for relationship by people-pleasing so we can feel like we belong. We search for impact by seeking power so we can feel like we have significance. Our attempts to control become a substitute for authentic connection or relationship, and for significance or impact.
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God created human beings so that He could be in a love relationship with us. Nothing less will satisfy God. He wants us to love Him as He loves us.
God's nature is love. And the nature of love is that love wants to give. How do I know that? When I look around, I see how those who love want to give to the beloved. I see a young man who brings flowers to his girlfriend. I see a mother who gives the choice morsel on her plate to the toddler who wants the last piece. I see the father who gives up his Saturday morning to throw the ball with his son.
The very best thing that God had to give is Himself. So God created human beings so that He could lavish His love upon us, lavish Himself upon us.
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God had a purpose in mind when He created everything. God created human beings because He yearned to be in a love relationship with us, a familial relationship in which He would draw us to mirror Him.
- He wants us to be holy as He is holy.
- He wants us to be good as He is good.
- He wants us to be loving as He is loving.
God had a plan. Because of His foreknowledge, God knew that Adam and Eve, using their free will, would choose to sin, bringing sin and death into the world. Yet this did not cause God to give up on His plan of creating people. God could still make us as people who would have free will (so that we could freely choose to love Him as He loves us). According to His plan, God would send His own Son as a Messiah who would save us from our sins.
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God made us in His own image (Genesis 1:26-27) because that was the most loving thing that He could do for people. After all, God is so good that there is nothing better. God's divine attributes are far beyond any human ability.
God created human beings, giving us the capacity to think, to feel and to choose. That's because He wanted to be in a love relationship with people — people who could understand that they were choosing to obey God out of love for Him.
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To have fear of the Lord means to respond to God with awe of His goodness, respect for His authority, and obedience to His commands. If we neglect fear of the Lord and speak only of God's love, we may be careless in sinning against God. Then, we may face His wrath.
We know that God said, “I will punish those who do wrong; I will repay them.” And he also said, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (Hebrews 10:30-31 NCV)
Think of it this way. Imagine that you are standing on a railroad track with a barrier on each side that prevents you from stepping off the track. Just ahead, you see a train barreling down the track toward you at 60 miles per hour. Would you be afraid? Of course! Now imagine that you are the switchman, and you know that you have correctly switched the tracks so that the train will veer off to a side track. Would you be afraid? Not this time, because you would know that you were on the right track. If we are on the right track, we do not need to be afraid of God. If we are not on the right track, we should be afraid of His wrath.
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Perhaps you remember the story of how God split the waters of the Red Sea so the Israelites could escape from the Egyptian army. After 400 years of abuse as slaves to the Egyptians, the Israelites were leaving Egypt to return to the Promised Land. The fleeing crowd of Israelites arrived at the Red Sea only to discover the Egyptian army closing in behind them. Some of the Israelites panicked, but Moses reassured them with prophetic words that God would fight for them:
But Moses answered the people, “Fear not! Stand your ground, and you will see the victory the Lord will win for you today. These Egyptians whom you see today you will never see again. The Lord himself will fight for you; you have only to keep still.”…
Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord swept the sea with a strong east wind throughout the night and so turned it into dry land. When the water was thus divided, the Israelites marched into the midst of the sea on dry land, with the water like a wall to their right and to their left.
The Egyptians followed in pursuit; all Pharaoh's horses and chariots and charioteers went after them right into the midst of the sea….
Then the Lord told Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, that the water may flow back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and their charioteers.”… Thus the Lord saved Israel on that day from the power of the Egyptians. When Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the seashore and beheld the great power that the Lord had shown against the Egyptians, they feared the Lord and believed in him and in his servant Moses. (Exodus 14:13-14, 21-23, 26, 30-31 NAB)
Notice in the last verse that after hearing the prophecy and seeing its fulfillment, the Israelites “feared the Lord and believed in him….” When they saw God working in supernatural ways, they believed in Him. They saw the splitting of the Red Sea and the defeat of their enemies as evidence of God's great power, directed into an act of loving kindness toward them. When they recognized God as a supernatural Being with supernatural power, they feared the Lord.
Fear of the Lord does not mean to be afraid of God. Perhaps they had a valid reason to be afraid of God, because they had just seen how fierce God could be toward the enemies of His people. But they were not afraid of God, because God had displayed His love for them when He used His great power to provide for them and to protect them. Instead of being afraid of God, they felt fear of the Lord, which means to acknowledge God with awe and respect.
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God's goodness demands that He hate evil. He is slow to anger, giving the evil multiple opportunities to repent. If they refuse to repent, then they will face the justice of God.
God is a perfect balance of mercy and justice.
- Merciful: Toward the broken-hearted, God is tender-hearted.
- Just judge: Toward the hard-hearted, God is stout-hearted.
It bears repeating: God is a perfect balance of mercy and justice. Jesus shows us the expansiveness of the mercy of God when He talks to “the woman caught in adultery” after those who would stone her leave them.
Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She replied, “No one, sir.” Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, [and] from now on do not sin any more.” (John 8:10-11 NAB)
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The word image means likeness. We are made in God's image because we are like Him. One way we are like God is that we are made to have relationships and impact.
In the Bible in the book of Genesis, we find that we are:
- made for relationship, made to give and receive love (Genesis 1:26)
- created to have impact or dominion (Genesis 1:28-31)
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Jesus says:
I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I will lay down my life for the sheep. (John 10:14-15 NAB)
To know in this context means to be aware of, to feel for, to have experience of, and to understand. It is a knowing that is born of intimate relationship. Jesus tells us He wants to be in the same kind of reciprocal, personal and experiential relationship with us (His sheep) that He has with His Father who knows and loves Him.
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Jesus offers us His righteousness, that is, His right-standing before God. Now we can “confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help” (Hebrews 4:16 NAB). That's because when Jesus willingly died for us, taking the death-penalty for our sins, He opened the gates of heaven, restoring relationship between God and people.
Jesus has done His part. Now we must do our part; that is, we must accept what Jesus has done for us. God offers us a free gift of salvation; we must accept this free gift. We accept it by acknowledging Jesus as our Savior and Lord. If we have not yet been baptized, then we publicly acclaim Jesus as our personal Savior by being baptized.
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As we come to believe and trust in Jesus, we experience a personal relationship in which we belong to each other and have impact in our world. We become a new person inside and out. We're not the same anymore. New life has begun.
We become new as we acknowledge Jesus as our Savior:
- as we respond to the initial grace of conversion
- as we admit that we are sinners who cannot save ourselves
- as we claim our Baptism
We become new as we acknowledge Jesus as our Lord:
- as we become a follower of Jesus
- as we receive His Life and Presence and Power in our lives
- as we allow the Holy Spirit, given by Jesus, to guide our lives
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