1. God created me to love me in a deep and personal way.

In your deepest thoughts, in the beliefs you reveal by how you live, why do you think God created you?

What might make it difficult for you to believe and behave as though God wants nothing more from you than to love Him in return?

What might keep you from receiving God’s love?

What are ways that you might try to earn God’s love?

What comes to mind for you as the difference between being loved by God and being in a relationship with God?

Why would God want a relationship with you?

If God is love, then God will only be God if God loves. And since love, in its deepest meaning, requires a relationship, God can only be God if God can love another person. God can love creation, the material things that He created, but only humanity has the capacity to love God in return and enjoy reciprocal love.

Some theologians stress that the Trinity provided God with everything needed for reciprocal love. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit love one another—there is no need for anyone else to be involved. But God did create people, and God’s essence, His nature, is to love and live in relationship with others.

At a minimum, then, we know that God’s purpose in creating humanity was to demonstrate who He really is, by showing His unfathomable love, not only to the Trinity, but to other persons who can choose to either love Him in return or to reject Him and His love. We were created to be loved.

We are only fully human when we are fully loved, and only God is capable of fully loving us. Our journey on earth, the time of our physical existence, is given to us to prepare us to be capable of receiving God’s love and to learn how to love God in return.

At the end of our earthly lives, what we will be left with is our capacity to receive God’s love, to love God in return, and to live in an ongoing, loving relationship with God, forever.