The God I serve

Heard a preacher explaining just that recently,

The preacher was explaining to those who ask,why we have free will if it leads to people making poor choices, even harm to self or others?

The explanation is that’s the only way you can have love is if you have free will also not to love.

The preacher went on to explain children are born needing to be taught goodness, that evil is inherent, kindness is learned and a sign of love, requires more work than our natural inclination.

That supports the idea His goal is to have a relationship with us as He’ll know we do love Him if its not in our programming to love Him yet we choose to serve Him of our own free will.

AMEN brothers! This is a very well said piece. Thank you both for it.

The OP appears to connect with mostly his emotional faculties. There is nothing wrong with emotional worship. It fulfills His will that we “love the L.rd your G.d with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deut. 6:5). G.d after all “desires the heart” (Sanhedrin 106b) and it is written, “But the L.rd looks on the heart” (I Sam. 16:7). Pure simplicity is precious.

My connection to G.d is currently more intellectual, more like water than like fire. This also is legitimate, as the verse says, “Know this day and take unto your heart that the L.rd is G.d; in the heavens above and upon the earth below there is nothing else” (Deut. 4:39).

Being in the cerebral zone at the moment, I appreciate Maimonides’ descriptions of G.d.

• “The foundation of all foundations and the pillar of wisdom is to know that there is a Primary Being who brought all existence into being… If one would imagine that He does not exist, no other being could possibly exist.” (Yesodei HaTorah 1).
• “[I]t is apparent that He is one with His attributes and His attributes are one with Him, to the extent that we can say that He is the Knower, He is the Knowledge, and He is what is known. He is life; He is the one living, and He is the one who draws down life to Himself. The same applies with regard to His other attributes. These concepts are difficult to comprehend.” (Shemoneh Perakim 8)
  Note: Tanya ch. 2 explains that this statement only applies in the lower worlds where it is possible to be discussing Divine attributes. However, there are higher levels of existence where all is one in a more extreme way, and the concept of differentiated attributes (heaven forbid) in G.d is simply inapplicable.

I particularly like Maimonides’ description of G.d as “the First Cause” in his Guide for the Perplexed (ibid. Part II, ch. 1). Even if, to make a difference, false beliefs exist in forces of evil as independent forces rivaling G.d; such adherents will still acknowledge a First Cause. As the Tanya explains:

• “[T]he essence and root of idolatry is that it is regarded as an independent entity, separate from the holiness of G.d. [Idolatry does] not [necessarily imply] an outright denial of G.d, as it is stated in the Gemara that the denizens of the [spiritual] realm of kelipah [unholiness] call Him the “G.d of gods,” [(Menachos 110a), showing that the forces of unholiness do not deny His existence per se.] Rather, [the statement indicates idolatry because] they consider themselves, too, to be separate entities and independent beings. In doing so, they separate themselves from the holiness of G.d, since they do not nullify themselves before Him. For, the supernal holiness only rests upon that which is nullified to Him.…” (Tanya ch. 22).