Recently, I made some notes about God (as Father, Son, and Spirit). These thoughts did not originate in my brain--they came from Scripture, of course. The particular way these thoughts are worded are not mine either. These are deep, spiritual truths about God that have been gleaned from the whole story of Scripture. No simple proof text can be given to defend these, nor can any be given to disprove them. One must take into account the entire story of the Bible to see how these truths are in fact true. This is Part 1. Once all parts are posted over the next few days, I will give more details on the person and source who helped me pen these random thoughts. Feel free to comment.
Your friend on the journey,
Jason
God is neither male nor female, even though both genders are derived from God's nature. If God chooses to appear to us as a man or as a woman, it's because God loves us. Most of us would be embarrassed to admit that most of our visuals for God are very white and very male.
Do you believe you have free will? I do. God is not interested in prisoners. We're free to do anything we want to do. Just because God knows what we will choose to do does not reduce our freedom. Only God can set us free, but freedom can never be forced.
The Truth shall set you free and the Truth has a name. His name is Jesus. Everything is about him. And freedom is a process that happens inside a relationship with him.
Jesus chose to go to the cross--he wasn't forced, nor was he abandoned by God. Regardless of what he felt at the time, Jesus wasn't God's whipping boy; furthermore God never left him and God will never leave us. The story of the cross didn't end in Jesus' sense of forsakenness. He found his way through it to put himself completely into God's hands.
God is not merely the best version of YOU that you can think of. He is far more than that, above and beyond all that you can ask or think.
When God spoke himself into human existence as the Son of God, he became fully human. He chose to embrace all the limitations that human life entailed. Even though God has always been present in the created universe, he then became flesh and blood. Although by nature Jesus was fully God, Jesus was fully human and lived as such. While never losing the innate abilities and personality of God, he chose moment-by-moment to live as a human. This is why his name is Immanuel, God with us, or God with you, to be more precise.
Jesus performed miracles he did so as a dependent, limited human being trusting in Father's life and power to be at work within him and through him. Jesus, as a human being, had no power within himself to perform miracles. Only as he rested in his relationship with Father, and in their communion--their co-union--could he express Father's heart and will into any given circumstance. So, when you look at Jesus and it appears that he is healing the blind, he really is. But what we are actually seeing is Father; Father's life in him. That's how he lived and acted as a true human, how every human is designed to live--out of Father's life.
The Father, Son, and Spirit are not three gods, and they are not one god with three attitudes, like a man who is a husband, father, and worker. He is one God and he is three persons, and each of the three is fully and entirely the one. What is important is that if He were only One God and only One Person, then we would find ourselves in the Creation without something wonderful, without something essential even. And He would be utterly other than He is. We would be without love and relationship. All love and relationship is possible for us only because it already exists within Him, within God himself. God is love.
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God is neither male nor female, even though both genders are derived from God's nature. If God chooses to appear to us as a man or as a woman, it's because God loves us. Most of us would be embarrassed to admit that most of our visuals for God are very white and very male.
-----------------------
Do you believe you have free will? I do. God is not interested in prisoners. We're free to do anything we want to do. Just because God knows what we will choose to do does not reduce our freedom. Only God can set us free, but freedom can never be forced.
-----------------------
The Truth shall set you free and the Truth has a name. His name is Jesus. Everything is about him. And freedom is a process that happens inside a relationship with him.
-----------------------
Jesus chose to go to the cross--he wasn't forced, nor was he abandoned by God. Regardless of what he felt at the time, Jesus wasn't God's whipping boy; furthermore God never left him and God will never leave us. The story of the cross didn't end in Jesus' sense of forsakenness. He found his way through it to put himself completely into God's hands.
-----------------------
God is not merely the best version of YOU that you can think of. He is far more than that, above and beyond all that you can ask or think.
-----------------------
When God spoke himself into human existence as the Son of God, he became fully human. He chose to embrace all the limitations that human life entailed. Even though God has always been present in the created universe, he then became flesh and blood. Although by nature Jesus was fully God, Jesus was fully human and lived as such. While never losing the innate abilities and personality of God, he chose moment-by-moment to live as a human. This is why his name is Immanuel, God with us, or God with you, to be more precise.
-----------------------
Jesus performed miracles he did so as a dependent, limited human being trusting in Father's life and power to be at work within him and through him. Jesus, as a human being, had no power within himself to perform miracles. Only as he rested in his relationship with Father, and in their communion--their co-union--could he express Father's heart and will into any given circumstance. So, when you look at Jesus and it appears that he is healing the blind, he really is. But what we are actually seeing is Father; Father's life in him. That's how he lived and acted as a true human, how every human is designed to live--out of Father's life.
-----------------------
The Father, Son, and Spirit are not three gods, and they are not one god with three attitudes, like a man who is a husband, father, and worker. He is one God and he is three persons, and each of the three is fully and entirely the one. What is important is that if He were only One God and only One Person, then we would find ourselves in the Creation without something wonderful, without something essential even. And He would be utterly other than He is. We would be without love and relationship. All love and relationship is possible for us only because it already exists within Him, within God himself. God is love.
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