Thursday, October 13, 2011

Meaning of Life - Why did God create us?

Out of God’s Love Comes Life
Perhaps we may find it easier to comprehend God’s intention for our existence, the meaning of life as it were, by considering in our limited capacity how He may explain it to us as we may explain to our own children. In many ways and limitless circumstances, Scripture tells us of our relationship with God; our varied levels of devotion and with some of us our departure from Him. It expresses to us His never ending love, forgiveness and acceptance of us should we seek to return to Him. This essay does not claim to be a transcript recorded directly from the mouth of God. It is a mere human perspective of the unimaginable, the flawless, incorruptible love only Our Heavenly Father could have for us. It has however, been written fervently attentive to the relationship between God and man as expressed throughout Scripture. Perhaps Our Father may say to us:
So many times my children, I have heard you question, why would God bother to create man; why would He love man? In a way that you may better comprehend the depth of love I have for you, I will express Myself according to your words. First, I ask the question of you: why do a man and woman so sincerely devoted in life and love to one another, long to bring forth children? Is it not the procreation of life in the sharing of that love that expresses the deepest respect, trust and surrender, devotion and freely given commitment between a man and a woman? As a man and woman become of one flesh in their sacramental union, is not their child the perfect expression of that unification into one flesh born of that love? Yet this testament to creation is less than a passing thought compared to that which rests within Me. For this reason I have bestowed upon you the gift of bringing forth children, directly sharing in My creation of life so that you may experience that most Blessed expression of love and the creation of human life made in my own image and likeness.

The foolish man of little faith may say it is a natural animal instinct to reproduce, degrading man to the level of a thoughtless beast. How foolish can intelligence render a man? For animals have no conception of love nor emotions, no pleasures derived from their day to day witness of their children as they grow and interact in their parent-child relationship; they cherish no memories and they know no guilt for wrongful acts a husband or wife may commit in offense to their loved one. They have no thought or desire in the willing commitment of a relationship with their beloved. Is it not true that man well knows his being is above all creation? Although many of My children have abused this precious gift I have bestowed upon them, there has never been a child conceived that was not My child. There has never been a soul brought into the world that I did not love, and never a child I did not wish to share in eternal life. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. It is because of these I have so long ago proclaimed, for every human life I will demand an accounting; even from animals I will demand an accounting of human life and from man I will demand it, for each and every one is My child whom I love. Yes, I love you.

So deeply I desired you, to love you and be loved as your true Father; to give you life and bestow upon you the heritage of eternal joy in My Kingdom, My Heavenly Universe. A magnificent Kingdom existing beyond all realms and limitations of beauty, purity, time and distance and the longing that you may share in this never ending paradise with Me if only that you may freely choose to return my love. Of this Kingdom no mortal can conceive, for this is the ultimate gift of life in its fullness and majesty.

Before you, My child, I created the angels, but then they had no lacking in their knowledge of Me or in their immediate relationship with Me. Although they also have been gifted with free will, theirs is an existence that left them no real need for choice of one path over another because they were created into Heaven and received fulfillment in their creation. They never experienced a life of choices. For My beloved angels to choose anything otherwise would be to choose wantonness; to reject all for part; satisfaction for dissatisfaction; contentment for discontent and absolute for uncertainty. Their love is true for Me as is Mine for them founded upon that which they knew of Me upon their creation and there was never the need for any other consideration on their part simply because they could only choose less. Yes, they choose Me lovingly and devoutly in the most sincere angelic way but in a sense their free will was hampered by the instance of their most intimate relationship with Me without alternatives to choose in their existence.

But what, I pondered, of a being that would be born in My image and likeness yet possess no true pre-knowledge of Me to interfere with his or her free will?



How much more deeply could love be confirmed than if desirous and offered freely; born of the longing for knowledge; nourished in wisdom and matured in the desire for fulfillment in a freely chosen loving devotion. Each child to be given the opportunity to learn of Me over time no differently than learning of any other loved one, yet a knowledge that would not be so overwhelming as to hinder My child from making the choice to love Me freely. Always I have offered you the guidance and path that you may walk beside me, but by your will, not mine. To each I give the time to grow into many levels of direction to discern of their own accord; a child who would develop his or her own paths to choose between and should the wrong path be chosen the free will to find their way back if so contritely desired. For a child learning in time by the accumulation of knowledge, mistakes would be inescapable. But the loving chastisement of a father can not provide what is truly just without tempering justice with compassion and mercy. How could a loving parent not offer understanding and forgiveness in judgment to such a loving child who would seek to return with a contrite heart once having lost his or her way?

Therefore my child, in such a love, by My touch I created you; from My breath I gave you the Spirit of life. Within this Spirit dwells the subtle awareness of the innate relationship between all My children that from one Source, one Creator, one Heavenly Father, all have been given life equally in love and to love one another just as each would wish to be loved in return. This Spirit is the fountain of your morality, your inherent awareness of that which is good and which is evil; the Spirit of a compassionate and charitable heart that extends one’s self toward brother and sister without boastfulness or need of recognition. It is the Spirit of eternal life that will live on; advancing beyond the severance from human existence into the fulfillment of your intended nature like a butterfly departs from its cocoon.

You may question, my child; if God knows all things in the future and the outcome for the choices of each person as to who will choose eternal life in Heaven and who will choose to live only by worldly pleasures, what is the point in this life, why bother with it at all? Yes, I know the future of each of my children and the path they choose. But life is not only for my devoted children or those apart from Me, it must be for all in order to distinguish them. If a life is not lived and never reaches its outcome, there can be no future to know, for it never existed and becomes nothing more than a passing thought. There must be a present time for there to be a future and a past for there to be a present. From conception to the conclusion of a human life, man lives within the confines of time and time must be completed to reflect life’s outcome. A life must be allowed its course to reach its conclusion or there is no conclusion. Without life, there are no choices to be made and no free will to make such choices. Those who would choose to love Me, would never have had the opportunity to know life let alone express their freely offered love and devotion to Me. Therefore there would be no future because there would never have been an existence to lead to the outcome of an earthly life. Some may believe because their future is already known to Me they can not change to save themselves from condemnation because of the path they have already chosen. But my child, man chooses of his own free will knowing what the choices are, and man also knows the path to return to Me, should his heart so deeply desire. The future of a child who repents with a contrite heart and amends their life then reflects their repentance in their future.

Just as you my beloved, each of my children is born with my blessing and by my will that each may walk hand in hand with me. But all of the gifts spiritually bestowed in you must be nurtured as does all life to grow. As it has always been, when you choose to part from Me, I do not interfere but allow you the consequences of your choices. But there has always been that path that returns to Me should you choose to come home. Always I have made known the ways of true life through the guidance of my prophets. For you I have set aside a nation as my chosen ones in my people Israel to provide my Word to all through the ages, yet my gift of free will has never been removed even from my chosen ones. When many of my chosen became weak and strayed from Me, I promised a Messiah, My only begotten Son, the Christ, Jesus, to teach you how my children could and should live. This is my only Begotten Son made of Flesh and Blood that He may come to know human life and guide you through His example and in His teachings. That through His own suffering, death and resurrection, He may express to you your Heavenly Father’s love and provide you the knowledge and means to salvation once and for all so that you may choose to follow the path of eternal life with Me. For all days forward, all who believe and live through my Son become my devoted children. It is your choice to decide which path you intend to follow and it is that path that determines the eternity you choose, but no parent wishes to suffer the loss of a child. Whether you choose to freely seek the true essence of life and come to know the love of your Heavenly Father in that most intimate and fulfilling eternal relationship, or to set apart from Me to pursue a path of your own desire. The free will to choose will always remain yours.

So it is by this earthly life I have provided you the opportunity to learn and mature in heart, mind and soul and in the awareness of your existence above all creation, that you may pursue life by your own free will. Through this life you are presented with the time to choose your direction by the path you wish to follow and to choose the relationships you wish to enter into. It is by the seed of moral virtues gifted you by the Holy Spirit since conception that you will know in your heart the conflict between what is right and wrong, what is gifted and what is lost. But as I love you so dearly my child, I desire only the most freely offered love and devotion from you in return. You will never be so influenced by an overwhelming knowledge of me that your free will may be unjustly inhibited or held captive. You could not bear to know all there is to know and remain uninhibited. There can be no faith in love where there is all certainty, as faith expresses trust and the depth of one’s devotion in the absence of certainty. As in every human relationship you will come to know Me to the depth you seek to know Me, but a great deal must rest in your growth in faith and trust so that you may retain your free will. Only by sincere interest and desire does one seek to know another before a truly intimate relationship can be formed. Remember always, it is not my will that you love Me, but rather that you love Me freely and of your own desire, as freely did I give you life. I am the Father of life; I am your Father.

Closing Note: perhaps we may consider this human life as a filtering process for our growth toward eternal life. We must choose personally what is truly important to us and what we will dismiss or reject to achieve our highest priority. No matter what we choose, there is always two options that present us with a choice or there is no choice to make. therefore, there is always a dismissal or rejection. The experiences we accumulate by the choices we freely make, good or bad, can teach us in every incident if we allow them to. We should learn by the results of our experiences to set our priorities toward our progress, but more importantly we must grow in the knowledge of what is true progress and what is most lasting as apposed to what is only glitter and temporary. From that we will come to know the highest priority of all; coming to know the importance of living together in a pristine harmony that is without any conflict of pride, ego, greed selfishness or ill will, preparing us for that spiritual life in heaven where we all share an unlimited, timeless existence lovingly and without infringement upon one another. We learn a love of each other founded in the joy of sharing endless spiritual experiences, shared as children of one and the same Father. What we are called to learn in this life is that highest priority of all - that learning to be charitable toward one another is simply preparation for taking part in the sharing of all and with all, without the concern of infringement on those around us because we will not have the interests or desires in the enticements of the physical world to tempt the weaknesses we commonly fall to such as pride or ego or greed. But understanding the importance of a loving charity or sharing toward one another in this life is critical in our becoming worthy of sharing all in eternal life in Heaven with those who preceded and will come after us. Purity, love and charity of heart are the keys to the soul's worthiness to enter this place where only those souls possessing such recognition can enter, thus preserving the very purity of heaven itself as the Kingdom of God.

An unclean or sinful soul can not enter a place of eternal purity and fulfillment without by its own nature tainting the very place it has entered. Those who pass from this life with a disposition centered on self alone to the point of serious sin can not thereafter change or reverse the life choices they elected to pursue nor their rejection of God during their life. In heaven there is no conflict or competition. No pride one over another or greed of any form. Everything belongs to everyone and the experience of one may be equally shared with all without infringements or restrictions, unlike those things we may accumulate during this life which are temporary, lasting but a very short time. If we consider the value an object from this lifetime will have for us in the spiritual life to come, we can easily understand it would serve no purpose or need nor would we have interest in anything material once having passed on from this world. Considering this truth, it then leads us to the realization that our love and charity toward each other as equal beings created as children of God is the goal each person must reach to be prepared for an existence where no conflict or competition exists and all is shared without reservation. This we must reach or we miss the beauty of what God offers us eternally; all beauty in every respect in a world where love is natural and unadulterated and shared in joy.

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