1 John 4:8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

To know Him is to love Him.

For those of us that have children we are familiar with the endless why. No answer is totally satisfying and just leads to yet another why.

Why did God create all this?

The simplest answer is found in the first commandment, the greatest commandment, love God.

John 1 English Standard Version

The Word Became Flesh

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit were alive in an eternal realm alone, in unity, One alone.

Love, like light, needs an object to pore itself out upon, to be seen. No greater love has ever existed outside of who God is in character and experience. The issue of love alone is that there is no reciprocal emotion, no return on investment. The object of God’s love is asked to love God in return. That emotion has to be a free will expression or it is not real.

So what is the end game of creation because of this great love?

Isaiah 62:5 For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

Revelation 21:2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

2 Corinthians 11:2 For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

Ephesians 5:25-27 English Standard Version

25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

The Father loves the Son so much that He created a bride for Him to love and to be loved.

1 Peter 1:16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

This is a declarative statement. Since God says you are holy then by God you are holy.

In the most simple terms, it doesn’t matter what you think, it only matters what God thinks.

Romans 3:26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Justification is a declared state. God is keeping the books on all mankind. The debt we owe God in this hostage negotiation put us in the red and only God can cancel out that debt based on His sense of justice not ours.

John 3:17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

God the Father sent God the Son into the world to be that perfect sacrifice to justify His choice to end obedience to the law as a demand for having a relationship with God the Father.

The basis now for this personal relationship with God is by placing our faith in the atoning work performed by Jesus on the cross. Jesus fulfilled the law taking away the ordinances as a demand for being justified in God’s eyes.

Matthew 5:17 Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

Here money is translated from the Greek mammon, a Semitic word for money or possessions. The idea being that if you place our love of anything before our love of God we have violated the great commandment.

Matthew 22:36-40 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”

Phase two is the first characteristic of that love.

Matthew 22:39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Love needs to be shared because that is what love does. God is love.