Section 2 Designed for Compatibility

This post is the fourth in a series titled “Transformation Workbook“.

In the last post, we discussed God’s purpose of the believer, which is to glorify Him. We glorify God by manifesting His unseen, inner qualities through our lives as we grow spiritually in the process of transformation. Transformation is the divine process of change through stages that forms the character of Christ in the believer. As Christ is formed in us and we live out His character, the fruits of the Spirit are expressed through our lives.

The next series of posts will discuss how God has designed the human soul to be compatible with Him for relationship, what God has provided to meet our human needs to be fulfilled and completed and the system God designed for us to communicate with Him. This third post of the series will discuss how God patterned the design of the human soul after His own so that we could be compatible for relationship with Him.

Designed for Compatibility

In the beginning, when God decided to create man, He chose to pattern the human soul after His own.

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “LET US MAKE MAN IN OUR IMAGE, IN OUR LIKENESS…

God made our souls after the pattern of His own essence. The primary reason for making us in His image was so that we would be compatible with God for relationship. Compatibility with God enables us to experience an intimate relationship with Him. In His creative design, God made Adam/Eve so that they could relate to Him in a personal way. Also He was preparing our souls for our eternal future with Him. A study of the scriptures will yield a primary idea that is taught from beginning to end, that is that God loves us and He wants us to love Him with all of our being. This total and intimate relationship is part of the desire and purpose of God and the primary pursuit of our lives.

Matthew 22:37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’

God created the human soul with five different faculties: Self-consciousness; mentality, emotion, volition, and conscience. Each of these faculties have their particular function in making the soul operate the way God intended. Let’s take each one and briefly define its function

Self Consciousness – the awareness of one’s self as a separate entity along with the capacity to look at the self objectively as a spectator. SC is that faculty that enables us to watch ourselves as we think and behave. This ability is necessary to observe and evaluate our own thoughts and behaviors. You use your SC every time you watch your own thinking and behavior.

Mentality – The ability to perceive, remember, believe and think. Using the two different mechanisms of the mind and heart, the soul processes information to build a belief system that controls our whole life.

Emotion – the ability to feel in response to our thoughts. Emotions are a wonderful gift from God. They are like the taste buds of the soul. While many make decisions based on “how they feel”, emotions are nothing but responders to thinking.

Volition – the capacity to choose based on one’s own values. Volition is the spotlight faculty in the Angelic Conflict. Our eternal and temporal destiny is based on what we choose to believe.

Conscience – the conscience is the storehouse of our values that are formed from our beliefs. The conscience functions as a computer that evaluates every experience from the standpoint of right/wrong, good/bad, pleasant/misery, etc.

These five faculties mirror the inner essence of God and are what enable us to choose and process God’s thoughts. Not only are we designed like Him, but in our original creation, we were given the capacity to think like Him. This capacity was lost in the fall and is only regained after salvation. Regaining God’s thoughts as our own is achieved by the transformation process we are studying. Our design and capacity to think like God are what give us the ability to have a relationship with Him. God uses our divinely designed similarities in the bible to teach us important concepts about how He thinks.

Matthew 7:9 “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

Jesus, teaching us about God’s character compares His Fatherly love to that of earthly parents. As we instinctively and completely love our children so God-Father loves us and provides for our needs. The relationship He desires with us is like a Father to His children. This same image of a loving Father and His children is used many times in the scripture to describe the relationship He desires with us. It is with this image in mind that he wants us to pursue and approach Him for closeness and intimacy.

James, echoes this idea in his book,

James 4:8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

If we seek to come near to God He will not only receive us but will draw near to us as well in a reciprocal relationship.

God made us so that we could enjoy an intimate relationship with Him both in this life and forever. In eternity past, before He created us, He wanted to be close with us. Even today He reaches out to us through His Son and through the ministry of God-Holy Spirit and the word. The encouragement we find in this idea is for us to pursue a close and open relationship with our heavenly Father above all other pursuits. If you seek His face, he will not turn away from you, He will embrace you.

Let me summarize with principles of compatibility and similarity.

COMPATIBILITY – ability to relate to God because of similarities in design
1. God desires a personal & intimate relationship with each of us.
2. He has made us in such a way that intimacy is achievable
3. Both God & man desire the experience of giving & receiving love
4. Both God & man desire that others recognize admirable traits in them
5. Both God & man desire praise for their truly worthy accomplishments
6. Both God & man desire to hold a positive self image – self worth

Exercises

(a) Rom 5:5 says that the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
Do you believe God loves you?
Do you have a personal experience of being loved by God?

(b) Do you believe that a personal relationship with God is possible?
How do you believe God communicates with us?
Do you have a personal experience of the Holy Spirit?

(c) Have you been seeking a personal relationship with God?
What are you doing to pursue God?

(d) What do you believe is hindering you from experiencing God’s love?
Do you have a close relationship with anyone?
Do you believe you are unlovable by anyone?

Heavenly Father, encourage us to pursue a personal and close relationship with you. Help us to reject our human ideas about why anyone would love us and enable us to believe you love us by grace. Build in us a sense of worth based on the value you place on us in Christ.

View all posts in the Transformation Workbook series