Did you ever sit down to ask yourself why God dearly loves you? The type of love God has for us is called AGAPE LOVE. In agape love, one can die for someone to live instead, and also in gape love, one can even give his/her life to someone to have a life too.
The scriptures tell us that God created all living things including the Angels. But when Lucifer, who was one of the Archangels sinned, he and 1/3 of the Angels that followed him were cast out of Heaven to planet earth to wait for the Judgement Day, when they will be finally condemned to Hell for eternity.
When Adam and Eve sinned, they too were cast out of the Garden of Eden to the planet earth, but God chose to send a Savior for them in the person of Jesus Christ. Is God not fair towards Lucifer and those other Angeles for not providing a Savior just like He did to Adam and Eve? Of course, God is fair, we can only blame Him if we don't understand what love means.
Nowhere in the Bible tells us that God created Angeles or any other being in His own image and likeness, except man. Man carries the very image and likeness of God up to the point where he chose to sin. It was sin that corrupted the image and likeness of God in man.
Man's love is limited but that of God goes even to spiritual death (separation from God because of sin). This is why the scriptures say that God loves us even while we were sinners. Sin can separate us from God, but it can never stop God from loving us because we carry His very image and likeness. For example, you have a child who is not living with you in the same house due to certain bad morals. Yes, you can be separated from him/her, but that doesn't mean that your relationship is cut off or the child ceases to carry your image and likeness. Even though the child chose to corrupt him/herself, he/she still carries your image and likeness in that corrupted state.
As parents, sometimes our children can go off the lines and we get mad, or something horrible can happen to them, and we grieve. We get mad because we don't want our image, likeness, and DNA to be corrupted. We end up disciplining them. So with God, when we corrupt His image and likeness in us, He disciplines us as His children. Remember, discipline is correcting but not punishment.
God grieves too because of our sins. In the Book of Genesis, chapter 6, the Holy Bible says the earth was full of weakness and violence that grieved God, to the point He destroyed the whole earth with flood. In the same Genesis, God again destroyed the city of Sodom and Gomorrah because their weakness and violence also grieved God. God is very concerned about His image and likeness in us, and He hates to see that His very self in us is being corrupted.
In Genesis chapter 3, when Adam and Eve sinned, God sent them out of the Garden of Eden. On their way out, was the Tree of Life, and God put cherubim and a flaming sword to guard the Tree of Life for them not to reach out and take the fruits to eat . If Adam and Eve had eaten the fruits of the Tree of Life, they would have remained in that fallen state for eternity without any hope (no need for Jesus Christ to die). God didn't want His image and likeness to remain in that fallen state, so He protected them from not eating the fruits of the Tree of Life.
When our children do good or obey us as parents, we praise them, and we also identify ourselves with them, so with God too. The scripture tells us that when one sinner (just one) repents and accepts Jesus Christ as his/ her Lord and Savior, there is a celebration in Heaven. The scriptures went on to say about a shepherd who left ninety-nine of his sheep on the hill and went to look just for one that was lost. When he found it, he called his neighbors to rejoice with him. That celebration in Heaven and the rejoicing in the neighborhood all happened because of one image and likeness of God that returned to Him.
God dearly loves us because we are carrying His very own image and likeness in us. This the very reason when we were separated from Him because of sins, He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ to bring us back to him. But as much as God doesn't want us to remain in our fallen states, He will never force us to accept the salvation that He provided through Jesus Christ, but instead, He gave us a choice to accept or not. Remember that every sin must be punished, but Jesus Christ chose to carry our punishments instead.
Finally, God doesn't want us (His image and likeness) to remain in our fallen states, that was why He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ to die for our sins. So, why not choose to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and be reconciled with God?
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