One of the things that makes Christians stand out is that we don't just talk about God or ask questions about whether he exists or not; we also talk to God. God is not another object out there in the Universe for us to discover, and then move on to greater things.
God’s existence isn’t like the existence of aliens, maybe out there but so far away it’s not worth worrying about. Coming into contact with God is all about discovering the relationship at the centre of everything: the relationship that makes me who I am.
Christians believe that the relationship at the centre of everything is that of a child to its Father. This relationship is at the very centre of God’s life: God is the love of the Father for the Son, and the Son for the Father, and this love between them is the life of the Holy Spirit.
So the God we find ourselves in relationship with through Jesus is not a lonely old man, or an absentee landlord: he is the eternal undying love of the Trinity. He is the Father of Jesus, and through Jesus the Son, in the Holy Spirit, is Father to us who in baptism become his children.
3 comments:
Ok. So Jesus was always part of God then? Where was he before he did all that stuff that got him wiped out?
Hi - when we come into contact with Jesus we encounter the eternal Son of the Father, but we encounter him as a human being. In the life of Jesus, in his death and resurrrection God has taken up our humanity and in his great love has transformed it.
God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the eternal life of the one true God; and we who live in the ebb and flow of time encounter this God when he takes our flesh, and gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit
My understanding is that other religions (particularly other western religions, such as Islam, Judaism, and Paganism) also place the relationship between human and divine at the centre of everything.
So what do you mean when you say that talking to God is "one of the things that makes Christians stand out"? It seems to me that this is a pretty basic part of many religions.
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