Created for Love

If God is Love, it doesn't make sense that God first has to create a context in order to become Love or in order to be able to put Love into action. Before he ever created anything he was already Love, he was already in relationship – he already loved and was loved! The love that exists between Father, Son and Holy Spirit was already perfect and fulfilling. If that is true (and I don’t see how it can be any other way), then it follows that God did not create us because he needed someone to love or because he needed someone to love him!

If God is Love, then his reason for creating in the first instance is simply to lavish his perfect love on someone. Because God is Love, it delights God no end to allow someone else to enjoy that Love, allowing them to receive it and experience it, simply because it is good! (How often do we simply allow ourselves to soak up God’s love, for no other reason than to enjoy it?)

If God is utterly Love, then it is unlikely, in fact it is impossible, for His main purpose in creating to be that the created beings serve him or worship him. That would have made him self-serving and self-seeking. Yes, of course he enjoys our worship as an expression of our love for him. Of course it delights him when we serve him as an expression of our love for him. But that is not what motivated him to create us!

Maybe we can get a glimpse of this if we ask ourselves why we normally choose to have children. It is not in order to meet our need to love or to be loved. If it is, we will be sorely disappointed! Nor is it so that our children can serve us. Of course we enjoy it if and when they do, especially when they do it because they want to. I did not have my children so they could bring me cups of tea in bed in the mornings or do the housework! I enjoy it when they do, but that is not why I had them. We also do not have our children so they can somehow ‘bring us glory’ or make us look good. More than not our children have a wonderful knack of embarrassing us in front of other people and we become painfully aware of our shortcomings as parents!

We normally choose to have children because we want them to become part of our family, part of who we are. We want to give them the chance to enjoy life. And in a way, they become an extension of who we are. Yes, they are people in their own right. But they carry with them the hallmarks of our family identity and they become part of who we are, just as we become part of who they are.

If God is Love, then his first motivation for creating us is to be receivers of His Love, His life and for us to become part of his family.