Can Man Live Without God?

We grow from the wonder of childhood to the search for truth in adolescence, and then to the pursuit of love as young adults.

The Death of Love

Love plays a major role in helping fill our lives with meaning which is why we experience such devastation when love is lost. 

“He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (I John 4:8) “Greater love has no one than this than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” (John 15:13) It is only in Christianity that we find the nature of God defined as love. 

1. False Concepts of Love

 The world speaks about free love, but there is no such thing. Love is never free and is always confining.

The dictionary defines love as an emotion, but love is much more than an emotion. Love is a commitment. That is the reason the most important part of the wedding ceremony is the marriage vows. Love is only as strong as our commitment.

To the unbeliever, love is reduced to a sexual act. The secularist defines the sexual act as “making love.” This is because the humanist believes we are nothing more than animals, and that sex is the result of a natural force for reproduction.

For the believer, sexuality is only one expression of a covenant of love, which is to be confined between a man and a woman in a life of holy matrimony.

2. The Essence of Sin is Selfishness

What is the worst sin we can commit? Idolatry! An idol is anything we put before God in our lives. This was the first commandment God gave to Israel, “You shall have no other gods before Me.” (Exodus 20:3) The apostle Paul said, “Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth; fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” (Colossians 3:5) Paul is saying as Christians we must not be selfish. Selfishness is the worship of self. This is what makes idolatry so destructive because we become like the God we worship.

“But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money.” (II Timothy 3:1-2) There will be no love in hell. Hell must be the inability to love. The absence of love contributes to the loss of meaning in our lives. 

3. Love Climaxes into Worship

All earthly relationships as we know them will ultimately come to an end. Jesus said, “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels of God in heaven.” (Matthew 22:30) Only in the Christian faith is life with God portrayed as a relationship of love. Ultimately, our relationship with Christ is described as a celestial wedding of a bride and a bridegroom. 

As our relationship with God matures it will ultimately bloom into worship. The enrichment that flows from worship feeds other relationships and helps us keep our sacred commitments.

The deepest hunger of the human heart goes beyond love. Jesus called that “beyond,” worship. Worship is the submission of all our nature to God; quickening our consciousness by His holiness, our mind by His truth, our imagination by His beauty, our heart by His love, and our will submitted to His purpose. 

Worship is important because it brings life into cohesiveness within itself and into harmony with others in the community. It is only when we worship God that we come into harmony with creation.

It is the nature of love to give itself away. Love that is not expressed will soon die. This is why the cross of Christ is the ultimate expression of love in Christianity. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) 

Jesus said, “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 16:12) Again He said, “Greater love has no one than this than to lay down one’s life for his friends. (John 16:12)

With the Death of Love, Meaninglessness Will Unleash Violence Even on Those We Claim to Love.