To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love.
Instead of telling them God has a wonderful plan for their life - tell them who God is.
In God alone, essence (what He is) and existence (that he is) coincide.
We can't say what God is, and until the modern period, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theologians in the three God religions all knew that. They insisted that we have no idea what we meant when we said that God was good, or wise, or intelligent.
The reason for our loving God is God.
Justice is not something God has. Justice is something that God is.
Even the Quran, which Sufis respect as the direct speech of God, lacks the capacity to shed light upon God’s essence. As one Sufi master has argued, why spend time reading a love letter (by which he means the Quran) in the presence of the Beloved who wrote it?
In a sense we're all children of God - Jesus is called the one and only Son. Monogeneo is the word, God's only "genetic" child. He bears the very essence of God. What we say about God we say about Jesus. So the promise rises and falls on the identity of Jesus.
Hail, holy light! offspring of heaven firstborn! Or of th' eternal co-eternal beam, May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light And never but in unapproached light Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee, Bright effluence of bright essence increate!
What is the glory of God? It is who God is. It is the essence of His nature; the weight of His importance; the radiance of His splendor; the demonstration of His power; the atmosphere of His presence.
Very few people believe in the devil these days, which suits the devil very well. He is always helping to circulate the news of his own death. The essence of God is existence, and He defines Himself as: 'I am Who am.' The essence of the devil is the lie, and he defines himself as: 'I am who am not.' Satan has very little trouble with those who do not believe in him; they are already on his side.
A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying [God]. It “consents,” so to speak, to [God's] creative love. It is expressing an idea which is in God and which is not distinct from the essence of God, and therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree
It connects with the theologians' point that you can say what God is not, but not (easily) what He is.
God lives, but not as we. His creatures live but to die. But God is life. Therefore, goodness is not an attribute. Goodness is God.
Being made merely in the image of God but not otherwise resembling him enough to be mistaken by anybody but a very near sighted person.
Eternal life is not a gift from God; eternal life is the gift OF GOD.
Love is the root of creation; God's essence; worlds without number Lie in his bosom like children; he made them for this purpose only. Only to love and to be loved again.
If God is not a Trinity, God is not love. For love requires three things: a lover, a beloved, and a relationship between them.
God is not the mere dead conception to which we have thus given utterance, but he is in himself pure Life.
