I don't think it is expected. But God loves us humans no matter what we do. He sure would be glad if we love him back and he probably wants us to. But free will given, you can choose not to.
If someone really loves god, then I don't see why one wouldn't do gods will. And when it comes to that, no one is perfect. Everyone has struggles in their relationships, whether it's the relationship with God or with a friend. Problems occur, you can be angry with each other and there are ups and downs. But god loves you and he wants you to have a relationship with him. So if you love him, then show him your love.
You still have your free will. Thats how I see it. Its a relationship and you have to keep working on that.
first off couldn't have said it better myself.
Hey Barnabas this question is for you:
I was raised Roman Catholic and went through religious studies, but one thing never really made sense to me (and don't think that it applies to just Catholics seeing as it's a basic foundation of Christianity) was why Jesus had to die on the cross for us.
I just never really got the point of Jesus having to die, knowing full well that he was God and would go to heaven. I never asked questions, but I never understood the reasoning behind Jesus having to die for our sins, or what difference it made. I'm interested in your interpretation.
(sorry if this is too off topic for your thread, I'll move/delete it if you want)
no, thanks for asking this thread was derailed from the light hearted joke it was meant to be long ago.(not necessarily a bad thing either)
Bear with me as there is a lot of unpacking to do
Alright let's jump back to the OT, God has put the Earth together and everything in it. He creates Adam the first man and eve the first women, he tells them that they have dominion over the earth and can eat of any fruit but the one in the center of the garden, the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil, or they will die.
long story short Adam and eve eat the fruit, because of this first sin(disobedience towards God) they are separated from God.
fast forward a bit and you have Abraham, during this time (before the ten commandments and the exodus) Man has a simple understanding of whats right and wrong, this lasts until the time of Moses.
fast forward to the time of Moses, God's people are enslaved in Egypt.
Long story short, Moses leads the God's people out of Egypt across the red sea.
Following this God's people are led into the wilderness, they eventually make there way to mt. Sinai. There they make covenant(promise) they they will follow God's law, God in turn promises them as long as they follow him he will protect them and keep them safe from harm.
This is the time when we get not only the Ten Commandments, but the rest of the Jewish law, which by itself is confusing enough, in fact God mentions that this covenant was not perfect and through prophets tell his people of a new covenant that would come.
once again we fast forward to the roman empire and it's conquest of Judah. The Jews now live under Roman rule and law. several time disputes arise between the Jews and the Roman government, and several time the Jews are put down .This leads up until the day of Jesus' ministry.
It's important to note the different faction in Judah and Israel during this time
Pharisees- Most people can recognize their name but don't really know who they are. Commonly know for the several debates they had with Jesus.
The Pharisees were a group of religious conservatives who believed they were under roman control because the people had disobeyed God. They were usually the wealthy and educated members of Jewish society and were know as the keepers of the Law. They believed that if they just returned to God's law and did not sin God would send the Messiah spoke of by the prophets and free them from captivity.
They at first were a fair minded group, who taught people to follow God's law, but before long they decided to add there own views to the law,one example would be that you weren't supposed to work on the Sabbath, well what qualifies as work, they come up a bunch of different sub laws to qualify things like this. in a other sense they would take a law like, don't indulge in to much wine, and extend it to don't drink wine, and even further don't look at wine, and even further to don't think about wine. As you can see these things got out of control and set the stage for the many debates that the Pharisees and Jesus had.
It should be noted that the Apostle Paul was a Pharisees
Next up are the Saducees- The Saducees advocated working with Rome to make a better living for the Jews, thanks to them things like the roman aqueducts were brought to Judah and Israel. They were Jews by name and history, the only part of the OT they followed were the books of Moses or the first five books of the OT known as the Law or Torah. So in this sense they didn't care of anything else written by the prophets and other writers of the Bible. If you watch there questioning of Jesus you can notice how they ask him about things like the resurrection, they held no views on such things and would try to lure a specific response from Jesus by asking those questions, You'll note that Jesus responds with a reference to Moses as the is the only one the Saducees acknowledge,
Now the Essenes- the Essenes are one of the least famous of the factions, but contribute more then any other group combined. The Essenes are the group who recorded, collected, and hid the Dead Sea Scrolls. They were a religious group whom believed that all of Israel was wicked, and that they should separate themselves from the people and live lives devoted to God in the mountains. They also believed that god was going to lead them in a war to recapture the city.
Final we have the Zealots- They were a militant group of Jews who opposed the Roman occupation, they commonly attacked guards and fled into crowds for cover. They like the Essesnes expected the messiah to come take back the Jewish nation from Rome and establish it forever. You'll note that a few of Jesus' followers were zealots, and that even Apostle Simon was a formerly Zealot
With that you can see that the time of Jesus ministry was a the very least complicated.
now we come to the to the actual ministry of Jesus. The best way to sum up Jesus' teachings is that the Kingdom of God is at hand, he's telling people that the Messiah is here and he is going to lead them to God.
Several time in his ministry he points out that he is going to die at the hands of "Jews" which general meant the Pharisees and the Chief priests.
Eventual the "Jews" do get fed up with Jesus and have him unfairly crucified.
THIS IS THE ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION.
Alright so we covered, Sin how it came into the world and what it does. Sin separates of from God which is the same as death.
The Jews later make a covenant with God saying we will follow your laws, and God agrees to protect them as long as they follow the laws.
So at this point, the separation caused by sin is brought together by the Law.
We know that the law is large and confusing, we also know that at the time Jesus ministry it was being misconstrued by the Pharisees to try to better follow it. Thus the law was not perfect because God's people could not continually stay connected with God because they could not perfectly follow the law.
Now we come to Jesus' life, which was perfect. it was mentioned earlier that animals were used to cover the debt of sin(eternal death)as offering one life for another. However the offering weren't perfect and therefore could not perfectly pay the debt of sin.
Now we come to Jesus' death, His death was meant to be in place of or own as a sacrifice to cover our sin. Now because Jesus was perfect he could cover the cost of the Sin, and because he was God and God is eternal he could with stand the punishment of eternal death.
Because the debt of sin had been paid, we are no longer bound to the law of the OT to bring ourselves close to God, instead all we have to is Accept the sacrifice Jesus made on our behalf.
That is the new covenant, the perfect covenant. One that any one can except.
This little lesson is by no means exhaustive, books upon books have been written on the subject by men far smarter then me. But i think it should cover most of it.
