After creating the first man, "said the Lord," it is not good for the man to be alone, we are going to help him like him "(Gen 2:18). Among the animals, none of the human beings found him as a companion, as a true friend (Gen 2,20).
Then God made him come out of himself a companion (Gen 2:21-22). "This is indeed bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh," says Adam. He was a creature of God who was at his same height. You could help. You could love yourself. "For this," he continues in the Bible, "a man will leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh" (Gen 2:23, 24).
From that moment the seed of brotherhood is born in the world: two people begin to love each other. This first family that forms Adam and Eve are the symbol and the source of the brotherhood. Two people come together to share their lives. But not to force. But for love. Adam begins to be truly man, made in the image and likeness of God, at the moment he begins to love.
This is the main point of our resemblance to God. "God is love". And we, in a similar way, are also love (1 Jn 4). We resemble God because we love and are capable of loving more and more. Because we are called to live as brothers. To live more and more united.
How should we love ourselves so that each time we look more like God?
The human being realizes his mission of image of God with two main activities:
being father or mother, and dominating all created things. God is Father. We must also be parents.
As an image of divine fatherhood, man must multiply to fill the earth. "God created man in his image. In the image of God he created them. He created them male and female. He blessed them and said to them, "Grow and multiply and fill the earth" (Gn 1,27-28).
- God is love. We are also love.
- God is FATHER. We are also parents.
God himself is the sign that we must be love, if God has the capacity to love, and we know that if we walk! then this ability is also in us. Now it is necessary that in our lives, our families, in our churches we be love, we love each other as brothers, we are all creation and children of God, enough reason "I think" to love, respect and help each other.
If we ask a young teenager what love is, especially if she is one of those who watches many telenovelas, she will tell us with a sigh "love is the most beautiful feeling that exists". But although biblical love can be accompanied by feelings, it is not in itself a feeling, in fact the love that the Bible teaches can often go against feelings.
The greatest demonstration of this is the experience of Christ in Gethsemane's garden before his arrest. The word says that Christ was in great agony, his feelings were against going to the Cross, so much so that he says the word that I pray saying "father if it is possible this cup passes from me", but in spite of his anguish he woke up and went to the Cross, and why did he do it ?, in obedience to the Father and out of love for us. That is, biblical love does the will of the Father apart from feelings.
If we ask the same question of what is love? an intellectual will most likely tell us that "love is nothing more than the response of our mind to the actions and attitudes we receive from others", and once again we have to say that although it is true that Biblical love increases greatly when It is reciprocal, however the love that the Bible teaches occurs without taking into account the attitudes and actions of others.
We see that clearly in John 3:16 where the Word tells us that God greatly loved the world. And to what world do you mean? To an ungodly world that had turned its back on him, he had betrayed and insulted him. God loved a world that had become his enemy. That is, biblical love must be manifested despite our feelings and the attitudes and actions that others show us.