Another understanding of the “call to holiness” is a call to grow in our “likeness of Jesus” – to actualize our potential that God has given us to truly be His Children. It is our faith-based understanding that God had a definite purpose in creating humankind. Humanity was not an “accident”. Creation would not have been complete without the creation of human beings. Why do I say this? Because humans exist. Nothing exists that was not meant by God when He brought all things into existence.

I believe that one clue about why human beings exist can be found in our Christian understanding of God. We Christians believe that God is Three-In-One and that the power that binds the three into unity is LOVE. True love is creative and needs to be expressed. True unconditional love doesn’t exist if there is no one to whom that love is directed. The Father loves the Son and this love, which is the Spirit, is expressed by the Son returning the love of the Father. God unconditionally loves His creation and calls His creation to return His love. His love is returned when His creation exists in a manner which He intended when He created it. This is why we say there is a “natural law” that governs all creation. All things that are brought into existence by God have a natural pattern of existence. Humans, because God has given us “free will”, can choose not to live the way that God intended us to live when He created us. He took the chance of giving us a free will because He desired us to “freely” return His love. Much like the love that exists between Him and the Son, which is freely given and received, that is the type of love He has extended to us. This is why we experience the fullness of life when we freely return His love and live and think in a manner which is in the likeness of that of Jesus, the Christ.