What God requires of YOU.

The perspective of this Bible study is this: It is for a sincerely curious person, one who is not generally knowledgeable with the whole biblical message from God, a person who does not daily know the depths of God's love for her or him, nor the boundless joy of knowing the God described in the Bible.

Some biblical basics will be covered, along with answers to the question posed.

The approach used here is to describe in narrative what God requires of YOU (and to demonstrate in the download above the biblical texts which state these requirements); so the format of this Bible study is like a conversation between protagonists, and it is not punctuated by biblical texts within the main body of the study.

Not all questions can be answered in this Bible study, such as is: Do Angels exist? etc.

Only the basics about God, people and what does God require of YOU? can be answered in this particular Bible study; this study is not about religion, it is not about making a persuasive case for the student to select and attend a particular place or style of religion or church.

Of necessity the study makes the basic assumption that the student either does or eventually will trust the truthfulness of the Bible as a reliable source of information about God; if the student wishes to investigate the truthfulness and veracity of the Bible, the author of this study can separately provide information on those questions.

God requires that I love God, to OBEY God.

That I have knowledge of and respect for the true living eternal God, who has personhood with infinite intelligence, memory, power, perfection, beauty, and love.

That I worship (place first in my life) no other thing, person, or deity.

That I communicate with God by prayer.

That I hate evil, and that I strive for good.

That I am honest.

That I have a sincere desire to please God.

That I find happiness in God, and what God is bringing about in my life.

That I am content with what God supplies YOU.

That I remain hopeful and trusting in God.

That I do NOT undertake selfish bad activities, justifying myself in them due to feelings that God has abandoned YOU nor with feelings that God brings YOU disaster.

That I NOT glorify myself.

That I NOT depend upon my own plans to advance my own wealth. That I understand that this life is a temporary one, and that there is an eternal life.

That I have true awareness of, deep respect for, and generosity towards other people.

That I love others.

That I am NOT selfish towards others.

That I honor others .

That I do NOT hurt others.

That I am honest.

That I am faithful to what I promise.

That I hate what is wrong.

That I NOT want and do NOT take someone else's property nor reputation.

That I do NOT manipulate people to bring benefits to myself.

That I am willing to help others know about God, God's kindness, love, presence and care.

But I am NOT able, on my own, to implement what God requires of YOU, I can NOT because of my continual selfishness and desire towards what is corrupt, in God's eyes, and in my own eyes.

God is totally pure and loving, and my selfishness blocks God's ability to deal with YOU as I am, on my own, as a dirty rebellious orphan, in God's eyes, and in my own eyes, because God looks within my heart and my soul, and God sees that my motives are always selfish, and God finds corruption everywhere in my heart, my soul and my life.

God must perform a wondrous divine refurbishing work in ME so that I can implement what God requires of ME.

On my own, I am totally lost towards God, infinitely distant from God, due to my complete corruption and selfishness, in God's eyes, and in my own eyes.

And on my own, I am destined to be apart from God forever, I will never on own be able to please God as I am.

God's requirement that I love God is NOT met when I distance myself from God.

Even if in the past I made a one-time saving prayer to God, but thereafter lead a life distant from God, God's renewing life has NOT touched YOU where God wants it to touch YOU: in your heart, soul, and life.

YOU can NOT say that God has saved YOU when you seek to distance yourself from God, and ignore God.

Married couples do NOT say they are married when they live apart: NO, they are NOT married as long as they live apart from their spouse.

In the same way, those who love God are near to God, they are God's children, they live in God's presence, and they are saved by God. Those who are apart from God do NOT live with God, and they are NOT God's children, their lives testify that they are NOT God's children.

I need strong divine help to implement what God requires of ME, God must work this divine change in ME, I can NOT bring this change about, myself, I am totally unable to reach up to God, God must reach down to ME, to save ME from my selfishness, my corruption, my lost-ness.

God must provide a means so I can implement what God requires of ME.

Otherwise, on my own, I am totally unchanged, totally lost, totally corrupt and selfish, in God's eyes, and in my own eyes.

And I agree that I seek nothing but pleasure and self-gain for myself, to the detriment and loss of others, in my natural unchanged condition, God's vision of ME is correct and accurate: I am a selfish corrupt non-loving person, far from God, and far from people.

But someone has told ME that practicing a religion saves ME in God's eyes, isn't that true? Really?

I have found that whatever religious practices I follow to reach up to God does NOT change my internal condition towards God, I know that no matter what kind of religious room I sit in, no matter what kind of religious words I say, and no matter what kind of religious practices I perform, I know they are NOT efficacious towards God's requirements on ME, as long as my internal corrupt self remains untouched and unchanged towards God and towards people.

I can see in myself after going to a religious ritual that my unloving heart and soul are unchanged, and that I remain hurtful to people.

No, I can see that my religious practices bring ME no peace with God, NOT in God's eyes, nor in my own.

I want to live life according to my own plan, and it seems to ME that God does NOT exist nor does any God impact my life in the least way, and it seems to ME that I am left to my own devices in a world where everyone does what they want, to gain for themselves what no God is granting them, and it seems to ME that life is to be enjoyed and lived for the pleasures that the world provides.

I have considered this world and found that it is full of fruits and pleasures to be eaten and enjoyed.

And I ask this: If there is a God, does this God NOT want ME to enjoy this world of pleasures which has been given to ME?

I ask you: am I NOT made for pleasure?

Is it NOT my right to please myself?

Is it NOT true that if there is a God, that such a God has made ME this way?

Does this God NOT want ME to consume the fruits this God has given ME?

Am I NOT doing what this God would have ME do, which is to please myself with those things given to ME?

Would it NOT be denying God if I went against pleasing myself with the gifts you say God has given ME, to serve what seems to ME to be stringent unloving rules you say I should follow?

How can you tell ME God wants ME to deny myself?

How does God know what this life is all about, if there is a God?

Isn't God far away in heaven? Why is God concerned about ME, my puny little ways in this puny little life?

I really don't believe that God cares one little thing about ME at all, because if God did care about ME, God would make this a better world for ME, a world without sickness, without wrongs, without destruction.

I think you are wrong about the Bible, so isn't it a religious storybook of myths written by man to justify religious practices?

Didn't we evolve from lower forms, apes from even lesser forms, and what does God have to do with ME, since I was formed from lower animals over millions of years?

I ask you: what is so overwhelmingly important about God, anyway?

Why do I even need God?

You do NOT know the good, loving, kind, creating, personal God of the universe described in the Bible, if YOU think God is too distant for YOU to find, and too uncaring to help YOU in this life.

The Bible teaches that God truly exists, and can be seen in the wonderful, complex systems that surround YOU, the starry hosts, the galaxies, the mechanisms of the universe, life itself.

Isaac Newton, the father of calculus and the mathematical formulas that describe the orbits of stars and planets, learned that the stars, planets and their orbits are so carefully positioned in the heavens that only the Almighty God could have possibly placed them there in the first place; that is to say, no physical natural forces could have "MOVED THEM THERE", since they are so delicately and precisely balanced one with the other, all of them as a group depending on all of them as a group to keep them all in their respective places.

Newton discovered that all of the stars and planets "ARE IN GRAVITATIONAL TENSION" one with another, such that if one became out of balance with the other, the universe would NOT work as we know it, it wouldn't exist.

Newton's discoveries prove that the universe didn't "JUST POP UP ONE DAY IN THE PAST BY ITS OWN IMPERSONAL PHYSICAL FORCES"; in fact, without God holding these together, the universe would "STOP ON A DIME" and would NOT exist. Just like that.

God does exist! We can know this with certainty! God does NOT leave YOU without testimony and proof for God's existence, and God wants YOU to know that God exists.

God has formed and made everything personally, NOT by empty unemotional mechanical processes!

Objective scientific research has determined that out of dead unliving matter, no living thing is made and formed on its own, micro-evolution (namely specie adaptation and adjustment) refines existing living animals, and this is proven, BUT macro-evolution (namely specie creation and self-biogenesis from dead unliving matter) does NOT occur and has NOT ever occurred, has never been observed, and has no viable adequate scientific explanation for its full workings (namely how truly dead unliving matter brings forth conscious living life in animals and humans, how non-complex non-information repositories [lower forms] bring forth greater organization and greater information repositories [higher forms], indeed, scientific laws that everyone agrees with have satisfactorily proved that gradual macro-evolution at lower levels of energy and information [lower forms] can NOT bring forth the creation and forming of higher levels of energy and information [higher forms]).

God is a personal God who has personally formed YOU, and personally cares for YOU, God provides the things YOU need in this life, all sorts of things: strength, mental abilities, food, employment, friends, government, law, everything needed!

God has promised that eventually there will be a new world, one without sickness, without wrongs, without destruction, in the mean time, God cares for YOU and helps YOU personally in this life by way of a daily relationship with God.

God has a personal desire to join with YOU on a daily basis.

God has made YOU for God's own pleasure, and NOT for YOUR own personal self pleasure, indeed, without God, there is no true pleasure that fulfills: without God, we are lost and storm-tossed in an empty and meaningless world.

Only in God can anyone find life's fulfillment.

The Bible is a truthful trustworthy book given by God.

It's historical accuracy is without challenge, being proven again and again by modern researchers to be absolutely accurate and truthful.

The certainty of its information meets the highest legal tests for veracity and truthfulness.

YOU can trust the Bible as revealed truth from God, about God, about mankind.

God is NOT placing requirements on YOU to stifle YOU, but to bless YOU!

God's requirements on YOU are easily met, they are NOT burdensome, as long as YOU trust God to help YOU implement them, and as long as YOU daily relate to God, and having done that, God's requirements will fill YOU with happiness in loving God and loving people, as YOU answer God's requirements with Godly actions in life.

A simple example verifies this: God tells YOU it is more blessed to give than to receive, and this is proven to be so, as YOU give to others, YOU are blessed more than expected.

Every other requirement God has for YOU is similarly met with the joyous bounty of true knowledge that God loves YOU, and that I am God's child.

We are now at a cross-road in our Bible study: from here on, we either choose to listen to God and honor God, or we choose to ignore God, and dishonor God.

God is plural, existing as Father-Son-Holy Spirit in one God-head, three in one, and one in three (namely one in substance and being, displayed in a tri-unity of interwoven, non-separable substance expressed as three persons in one divine eternally self-existent God), so tightly woven together that indeed we can say with certainty there is no division and no cross-purpose within this one-in-three single God-head.

God is all powerful, all knowledgeable, all capable, all present everywhere at all points and places in the universe, but God is also outside and beyond the universe, God is over all, creates all, and governs all.

God is so present and so capable that God can move the entire universe around and everything in it just as easily as a human can move a spoon around on a kitchen table.

All that there is, and all that there ever will be is under God's power, plan, and purpose, nothing ever happens without God's knowledge.

God the Son, the savior of the world, always was and always will be, but on a specific date in time, He entered our physical world as a human, being both God and man thereafter, and He grew into a manhood conventionally, He taught from the Bible that people must repent of, must turn away from, their evil selfish corrupt ways, and God the Son willingly went to the cross to die and pay a ransom, (namely the price or payment demanded or needed to be paid for a person's release from prison; it is a redemption from sin and its consequences), as a propitiation-payment to God the Father for the evil selfish ways and sins of all mankind everywhere in all times, (namely a propitiation is a reconciliation to the offended party, an appeasement to the one who is hurt), so God was deeply offended by the selfishness and corruption of people towards God and towards people.

God the Son paid the price once-for-all-evermore by his death to cover all of YOUR sin debt to God the Father, and God is so gracious and so kind to YOU that God paid YOUR personal debt by an ugly painful death upon the cross by shedding his blood for YOUR sins against God so that YOU might become God's child.

Understanding that this is an undecipherable mystery beyond human power of thinking and comprehending, yet nevertheless we know from the Bible that God has done all the work to buy YOU back from the penalty of sin, which is death.

Physical death still reigns in this world, but God has broken the power of death, and will grant YOU life-after-death, eternal life, if YOU love and obey God.

And this is eternal life: that YOU believe that God the Son, Jesus, died for YOU personally and covered YOUR personal sin before God the Father, and that God the Son rose from the grave and was bodily resurrected, and He is the true and only Son of God (namely God the Son), the Messiah, the promised one, the one spoken of and described throughout the Bible as the savior of the world.

And this is the evidence that YOU have eternal life: that YOU continue to know and continue to obey God the Son on a daily basis, who has commanded YOU to know and love God, and to love people, and to know and implement the requirements God has placed on YOU.

God promises in the Bible that someday death will be dead and have no power.

God similarly promises that if YOU honor God, God knows YOU and watches over YOU, and that death no longer has power over YOU.

YOU are therefore released from death, obtaining eternal life instead, and clinging to it forever more, even upon YOUR physical death from this life.

But if YOU refuse at all points to implement God's requirements upon YOU, if YOU refuse to repent and refuse to believe in God the Son as savior for YOUR sins, then YOU have used up all YOUR options, and YOU can NOT claim any status nor standing before God, because YOU have raised yourself above God's merciful plan of forgiveness of YOUR personal sins, and have said to God: No thank you, I'll handle this life and my death my self, I am really NOT interested in you God and your plan for my life, and as Frank Sinatra said, I did it my way.

In this case, if YOU persist in this, some day YOU will physically die alone, and then face the eternal God on YOUR own, with no covering between this eternal God and yourself, and YOU will have to pay YOUR own price for YOUR own sin, which is the second death, eternal death, to be apart and away from God forever, eternally in pain and agony (since being without God, all of life is an utterly forever tormenting existence).

In this case, YOU will have traded eternal blessedness and happiness with God, and good and fine gifts from God, for aloneness, emptiness, darkness, away-ness, and pain, forever.

This is NOT a pretty picture.

But if YOU reject God, after God has formed YOU, cared for YOU, aided YOU, helped YOU, sustained YOU all through this life, what else can be done for YOU? NOTHING!

Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name; worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.

Psalm 29:2