What are humans made for?

I came across a great illustration by a guy called John Stott.

Take a fish for example

• God created to live and thrive in water
  • Salt
  • Fresh
• It has gills that cause it to grab the oxygen in the water.
• Water is the element in which fish find their identity
  • There fish-e-ness
  • Its freedom
• Water was the element that it was created for
• Imagine that this fish swan round and round in its bowl until its frustration became unbearable
  • So it decides to do a finding Nemo and makes a bid for freedom and leaps out of the bowl.
  • Landed on the carpet then its bid for freedom would fail.
• Fish are made for water
• What are human beings made for?
• What is the element in which human beings find themselves, as water is the element in which fish find themselves
• The bible tells us that the answer is love

Ephesians 5:2

Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.

Human beings are made for love.

God has given us the capacity to love and to be loved.

Jesus was asked a question ‘What is the most important thing’ we find the answer in Matthew 22:37-40

Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.”

So human beings find their destiny in loving God and loving their neighbours.

The English word for love is so inadequate.

• I love my wife.
• I love Marmite.

The Greeks have different words for love:

• Eros – Sexual Attraction
• Storge – Motherly, Fatherly, brotherly, sisterly
• Philia – Friendship
• Agape – An unconditional love for others despite what they do

Agape love:

• Goes beyond feelings
• Involves action
• Rooted in the person who is doing the loving
• Not dependant on the actions of the receiver

So Agape love is all about giving not receiving.

• A sacrificial love
• Love in action

We were created to love. So lets do what we are made for.