Man needs Absolutes

Man needs absolutes

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
                                                                       Genesis 1:1
The Bible makes no assumptions about God. It does not leave the subject of God’s existence up for debate. From the very first verse it states, “in the beginning God created...”
    That one line says it all.
    1/ There is a God above all things.
    2/ A God that created all things.
    In the new testament the gospel of John essentially reiterates the statement of Genesis 1:1 when it states,
    “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” 
                        John 1:1-3.
The gospel of John however goes one step further stating that “He (Jesus)  was with God in the beginning.”
    John makes it clear “Through Him(Jesus) all things were made.”
Jesus is God incarnate. He came to show man how much he loved him. He demonstrated in very real terms His love for his created.
Man needs God. He may not realize it but he does.
The Greeks like every other civilization that has ever existed recognized there was more to life than just the physical. They worshipped many god’s, even erecting a temple “to an unknown god”. It was this temple to an unknown god that the apostle Paul picked up on while speaking to the Stoics and Epicureans at the Areopagus.
    Paul said,
    “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 
And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 
From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 
God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 
                                             Acts 17:24-27
A favourite quote of mine is from Abba Hillel Silver who wrote,
    “Faith in God is the strongest bulwark of a free society.  Human freedom began when men became conscious that over and above society and nature there is a God who created them...who fashioned them in His likeness, and that they are, therefore, possessed of intrinsic and independent significance and are endowed, as individuals, with original and irrevocable rights and authority.”
Man needs absolutes in his life. Without absolute values in life our society will slip rapidly into anarchy. There is no such thing as one set of moral values for one person and a completely different set of values for someone else.
God has given men an absolute value system it starts with love. Deuteronomy states,
“Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Deuteronomy 6:5
    Jesus states,
“ ...‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. 
And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” 
                                         Matthew 22:37-40
Ultimately if we put God first in our lives and love as he loved the world would be a far better place.
 All morality ultimately comes down to love. God himself showed that love to us. He gave us a moral code that distilled to it’s simplest form is the ten commandments.
Within the Decalogue we are told by God how He expects us to live with respect to Himself and our fellow man.
God however did not stop there to quote Paul,
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” 
Romans 5:8 
    Jesus was sent by God to demonstrate His love.
    God realized that mankind was and still is slipping away from the absolute value system He has given us.
Simply put we are sinning and sin separates us from God.
In sending Jesus, God is pointing out to anyone who will listen the way back to fellowship with Him.
Someone has said “we, all mankind, are sailing on a ship to eternity. What we do on board that ship will decide where we spend that eternity.”
The decision is ours. God has given us a free will and a choice. Either accept Him and the salvation Jesus Christ offers or reject Him.
It’s that cut and dry. The decision dear reader is up to you.
Where will you spend eternity?
       Think about it?