DO YOU KNOW GOD, YOUR FATHER? - All-powerful Creator spirit soul body salvation eternity Jesus Trinity Holy

DO YOU KNOW GOD, YOUR FATHER?

“Nothing is too big for His omnipotence...

Nothing is too small for His LOVE.”

God the Father might be least known Person of the Trinity, and if we wish to come to love Him, we need to know at least some of His features.

We all know that God is love: He loves you and wants a close friendship with you. He wants you to be saved, free, happy in this present time and for eternity.

He would have sent Jesus to die on a cross even for you alone, and you need to know that He loves you with a personal, unending love.

But if God loves you so much, He also wants to be loved by you. He asks your love and is desperately looking for you, because He has created you for a purpose: to enjoy you and let you enjoy Him. Your wandering away from Him makes Him suffer.

But how can you accept such a great love, without the smallest knowledge of the Dispenser of such love, and without a clear idea of your human reality in its simple complexity? How can you love the Unknown, and accept His love?

Have you come to know yourself, first?

Before lifting up our eyes towards the infinite, we first need to know who we are, how we are made and in what reality we are immersed. In order to have a faintest idea of what we can expect, of what we usually need to face and how to overcome it, we need to know:

Who are we, really?

To better understand our true identity and the way we are created, we will adopt a simple illustration used by several spiritual teachers of the past:

Scripture tells us clearly that God created us in His image and likeness.

But being God a pure Spirit, such likeness cannot surely refer only to our external, physical aspect, or to our emotional potential: it must necessarily reach the spiritual.

It follows that we human beings, beyond the two commonly recognized aspect of our nature – body and soul – have a third one that only a few recognize and distinguish from the soul: the spirit.

Beyond the emotional “sphere” - shown between the body and the spirit in the scheme above - considered by many a guide to their conduct, we also have a spirit. And is just in the spirit that men have likeness with God. Only through our human spirit can we communicate with Him.

That is why it is so important to realize, non only the existence of a spirit within us, but also its demands, how it can be properly nurtured in order to receive and express the unending love of God.

Who is God?

What a marvelous task to try and talk about God to our brethren, to try and reveal His great, unimaginable love for us, His creatures! What a joy to present His plan of salvation for us – still incorrigible and convinced criminals – conceived even before the creation of the world!

“God created us because He wanted to have friendship with us, and here we see Him talking to Adam and Eve in the Garden. (Venetian Mosaic) – He wished to have our company and friendship!”

In order to better understand who God is and the nature of His love, we need to start from the very beginning, from the times preceding the creation of the world.

A Plan of Salvation conceived before the foundation of the world

To meet God as a Person and His reality is much easier for those who do not know God or who have gone astray, than for those who believe that they know Him and are satisfied with their degree of knowledge. Often people who “have something”, make the best of it and do not feel the need to look for the better. But those who are searching God are like a virgin territory, wild and thirsty but fruitful, which with the right care and instructions will produce the expected fruit.

Methodical Christians generally find more difficult to draw near to the living God: they usually have a preconceived idea of what He should be, and if the Person they come to know does not correspond to that idea, then temptation to maintain their previous, personal belief in quite strong.

But being a genuine New Testament Christian is much more then just attending some Sunday services or give alms now and then. It means “to belong to Christ”, to be His brothers and therefore sons of God. The intellectual knowledge of these notions, without understanding and experiencing their deep meaning, does not help much.

In order to grasp the magnitude of the plan that God wants to involve us in, we also need to figure out His global plan for the world in general, and then also for man. Otherwise it would be like wandering in a vacuum, without any foundations or handholds.

Many people will find rather childish the terms and illustrations used to try and express such a high and deep theological concept – which is fully supported by the Word of God. But its effectiveness on so many people encourages us to go on and use them.

Some of God’s features

All Christians know that God is, among other things, All-powerful, Omniscient and Eternal. And they should believe it.

We know that Omniscient means that He knows everybody and everything that happens in the totality of time: past, present and future are continually present in His eyes.

It is rather hard to try and scheme out the way God sees and considers time, creation and men - His favored creature - but we will try with this simple diagram:

God is beyond time. And holds the whole time in Himself: past, present and future.

To Him everything is a continuous present.

God is a perfect Being, with every positive quality, and was perfectly happy in His eternity. But He wanted to share such happiness with many other creatures made in His own image and having a spirit like His Own.

From the Past Eternity, when time did not exist yet and even before the foundation of the world, God planned to create man in His own image and likeness (Cf Genesis Chapter 1).

But when man wasn’t but a thought (idea) in God’s mind, in His omniscience God knew what a mess he would make. He knew that His masterpiece would consider more “logical” Satan’s captivating lies than His own Word and command. Man would disobey that one, only rule He had given him – not to eat of the tree in the middle of the Garden. He would disbelieve his Creator’s intentions (Cf Genesis Chap. 1; 3).

By that choice man would alienate himself from God forever, and such disobedience would bring him illness, curse, death and destruction. But the worst would have been man’s absolute impossibility to repair such devastating situation.

There is in fact a cosmic law to which the whole universe is subject, God included, by which those who perpetrate iniquity loose God’s friendship and protection; then Satan gets the right and dominion over the wrongdoer.

“By the same cosmic law, guilt can be repaired only through an offer proportionate to the offence.

In the event of the remedy for the future disobedience (we are still in the past eternity, and God is still planning the creation of man), there was an appalling problem to solve: how could man, a finite creature by then fallen into error, repair the offence against a perfect and most pure God? His own sacrificial death couldn’t be a solution, as the requested sacrifice had to be a pure victim, while man, corrupted by sin, had become impure and therefore unworthy for any rescue operation: he was infected, unworthy of a Perfect God. Men’s destiny would have been eternal damnation.”

But could a God of Love create men in His own likeness, but destined to eternal loss? Better not to create them at all!

Unless … an adequate solution could be found.

And God, before moving on with creation, worked out a plan for our salvation. Scripture doesn’t tell much about it, but we can find some revealing hints:

“He (God) chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoptions as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will” (Eph 1, 4-5, New American Standard).

And again:

“How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Hebrew 9,14).

Using imagination, let us draw at Kathryn Kuhlman’s method to try and show, in a very simple and humanly understandable way, the facts implied in the above passages.

Before the foundation of the world a Round Table was called up by God the Father: :

“In order to inform the two other Persons of the Trinity of His project to create the world and man, God the Father consulted with them revealing not only His plan, but also the almost immediate rebellion of man and his impossibility to rescue himself.” (Rubles’s Russish Icon)

From the past eternity God knew about man’s transgression, with all its horrible consequences for him; He therefore probably said to the Son and to the Holy Spirit:

“You see, I cannot create creatures in Our Own image, and let them be doomed to eternal destruction. A Savior is needed, a Perfect Being wishing to rescue them by sacrificing Himself in their place, so that their debt could be settled and the cosmic justice satisfied.”

At this point the Holy Spirit - interpreter and communicator of the Father’s thoughts - might have suggested to Jesus: “Do you not understand? The Father intends that You willingly offer Yourself as a living sacrifice for men, in order to rescue them from eternal death!”

And Jesus:

“Through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God” (Heb 9,14).

God the father, who leaves sinners free to be damned and men free to rebel against Himself, could not oblige His Own Son to offer Himself as a victim on our behalf. He could only express the need and wait for a willing offer. That came soon, thanks to that perfect love circulating within the Holy Trinity: in order to make His Father Happy and to satisfy His desires, Jesus warmly wished to offer even His life!

God has chosen you before the foundation of the world

So much you are precious in His eyes.

As soon as the divine plan for men’s salvation was viable, God begun to accomplish His plans, to make His choices among the future human beings, all present before Him even before the beginning of time:

“He (God) chose us in Him (Christ) before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1,4)

Our call really comes from afar ….

We are Jesus’ inheritance

After Jesus’ s offer to rescue the most precious creature in God’s eyes – we are still in the past eternity – another extraordinary fact came to pass, an agreement between the Father and the Son: if Jesus had accomplished the plans of salvations for man, all the future believers would have been entrusted to Him; they would be His inheritance (see Eph 1,18)

We often refer to “our own inheritance” as Christians:

“The Holy Spirit … who is given as a pledge of our inheritance …” (Eph 1,14).

But now we are talking about Jesus’ inheritance: we, His disciples, are His inheritance, and Paul gives us this news while he is praying:

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints” (Ephesians 1,18):

Here the reference is to Jesus Christ’s inheritance: we are the “saints”, in the New Testament language, - not only the Christians sanctified by the Pope (who didn’t exist at the time), with a big halo on their heads. - “Saints” means “separated” from the people of the world - who do not believe in God and in the Bible - and saints are all Christ’s followers who are “cut” out from the mentality of the world in order to live in God’s kingdom.

The Father entrusted us to Jesus

In His prayer to the Father before being imprisoned on the Mount of Olives, Jesus states several times that we have been entrusted to Him by the Father:

“(v. 2) … That to all whom Thou hast given Him He may give eternal life… (6) I manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest Me out of the world; Thine they were, and Thou gavest them to Me … (9) I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom Thou hast given Me … (11) Holy Father, keep them in Thy name .. (12) While I was with them, I was keeping them in Thy name which Thou hast given Me …” (John 17)”

We might conclude that God, in the past eternity, could have told to Jesus:

“My dear Son, if you will accomplish this plan and come triumphant out of it, I promise You as inheritance all those who will accept You as Lord and Savior, and thereby conquer eternal life.”

Is our condition better than Adam’ and Eve?

Our being Jesus Christ’s inheritance resulted for us in other incredible blessings. Jesus reveals these blessings to us when, at the end of His human mission, He goes on with His wonderful prayer to His Father in John 17, making another request for “His inheritance”:

“Father, I desire that they also whom Thou hast given Me – and they both knew quite well what Jesus meant - be with Me where I am, in order that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me; Thou loved Me before the foundation of the world” (John 17,24). In other words:

“Father, remember Our covenant. You love Me from all eternity, and you loved Me so much when I offered Myself to you through the Holy Spirit to be given for the world, that You promised as My inheritance all those who would accept Thy plans, and Me as a Saviour and Redeemer.” But if they are My inheritance, I want them to be always near Me, where I am, and that they have what I have. I want them to share my richness in glory.”

How was it possible that mere creatures, even if created in God’s likeness, would come to inherit the same richness as the Son? What should be added, in justice, to their nature, to allow such an extraordinary event?

God needed to add something to our nature

The Father answered to Jesus: “My Son, the only way to make it possible that men that are saved through your work be coheirs with You, is through adoption. I should adopt them, make them My Own sons, Your brothers. But I will do it with pleasure, as You are My only Son and I want you to be pleased.”

In His omniscience the Father knew beforehand what the Son would have asked Him, and since before the foundation of the world He had decided to grant such request, found in John 17.

We have already seen it in Ephesians 1, 4, where it is written that “As He chose us in Him (Christ) before the foundation of the world…” In His love

“He predestined us to adoption as sons” (Eph 1,5)

For that reason, in the moment you accepted Jesus as your personal Savior, His blood purifies you from your sins and God the Father, the Creator of the Universe, becomes your Father: You have been legally adopted and now you are a son of God and coheir with Jesus Christ of His spiritual richness. The interesting detail is that the reality of being sons of God and of experiencing His loving Fatherhood is not only intended for “eternal life”, is not put off to an indefinite time impossible for us to verify: it begins just now, on the earth.

The Holy Spirit in Our Life

In order to have this realized here and now, our life needs to be added in God’s same nature. This happens through the Holy Spirit, that Jesus gave us and that we are asked to receive into our life. The Holy Spirit is part of our inheritance, and is the anticipation and proof of our divine childhood: It is the same Spirit that Jesus had on this earth and that has been given to us as inheritance. In order to be “Christ’s brothers” and the Father’s sons, we need to have in us His same Spirit (if you don’t know how to receive the Holy Spirit, try and visit the Link “Holy Spirit and Charismatic Gifts” in this Home Page: you will find some precious advice).

This is the plan of salvation conceived by our Father for us, and its comprehension goes much beyond our ability to understand. Only the Holy Spirit can open our minds and let us glimpse into an overview of our future destiny, of the things that by right belong to us since now and that fall into God’s plan for us.

Without the Holy Spirit we could never understand.

Participation of the Three Persons of the Trinity

to the plan of salvation for man

So far we have considered how the original project for man’s salvation was conceived in the Father’s mind, the same Father of whom so many Christians have fear and even terror. And yet this God didn’t hesitate to propose His own Son to offer Himself as a victim in atonement for our sins!

In that divine project were fully involved also the two other Persons of the Trinity: Jesus, as the sacrificial victim who freely offered Himself on our behalf, and the Holy Spirit, who inspired the various developments of the plan of salvation.

The Father’s Role

Now I would like to stress the Father’s role, that is generally overlooked, ignored and even distorted, and the offer of His only Son.

We all know many Christian parents that not only idolize their sons, but this love is their first priority, even surpassing their love for God. Then might the family, work, and if God is lucky He might be the fourth, the fifth priority, or even lower!

But God offered us His only Son!

“In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4,10).

He allowed His innocent Son to be sacrificed for rebel and sinful creatures. Now you might ask:

Who is God the Father? How could I know and Love Him better?

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55,8-9).

With our plain natural gifts we humans have no possibility to understand God, His ways and His thoughts. We have only a limited knowledge of our own reality and projects, but what about God’s reality?

We certainly do not pretend to give a clear illustration of God, but considering what Scripture says, we could at least guess the reasons why there is such a difference between His thoughts and ways and our thinking and behavior.

God’s Omnipotence

- God knows everything and everybody

- Before Him stays all eternity: past, present and future

- He sees the visible and invisible world

- He cares about every single detail of creation – from the microscopic particles to the star systems.

Man’s limits

Limited reason:

In time
In memory
In the ability to discern

The time factor: limited knowledge in the

past (memories sleep away)
present
total ignorance of the future

Reality:

Complete ignorance of the supernatural world
Inability to see the invisible world.
Very limited knowledge of the visible world.

Man
limited knowledge

Faced with such differences, how could our ways be possibly similar to God’s ways? And His thoughts have any similarity to ours?

God’s thoughts and ways are not absurd or illogical: they simply follow another logic, have a much wider perspective. It is another level of thought, the supernatural one. Once we have understood the abyss that separates us from God’s ways, we are better able to consider the extent of His love for us and the need to take some active steps to follow Him.

Does really God love me? To what extent?

After a rather approximate look at what God had planned for us since before the foundation of the world, let us examine the history of our planet: Our dates in most countries are counted from Christ’s Birth as starting point . That is the proof of His real coming among us in a given time of history, and also of the accomplishment of God’s promise to rescue man. What could we conclude then? That God does not loves us?

Talking to people, we have the impression that not too many of them are convinced of being loved by God. Often believers have a wrong, distorted idea of God and many do fear Him, even to the point of being terrified.

If we want to help people to know God and draw near to Him, it is important to understand their hearts, their impressions and the reasons of their bad feelings towards God and the supernatural world in general.

One reason of this reluctance is the terror of feeling oneself judged for every bad deed, for every inability or weakness that we are unable to overcome.

We think that somehow we must “deserve” salvation, and of course we feel unworthy of it. Many do not believe in forgiveness even after having confessed their sins, and live with a guilt feeling that threatens all their life.

Catholics thought that the Second Vatican Council would put an end to this awful misunderstanding of the past of presenting God as a revengeful Being, always ready to record every little failure and ask each one of us to answer for them at the end of life. What happened instead?

A lot of believers are still convinced that God is unforgiving, a guy that is better to keep away from.

Salvation is for the Whole Man

But, and we will never stop to say it, it was God the Father who conceived and allowed the accomplishment of the plan of salvation for man: a total salvation for the whole man, in the three aspect of his nature.

For Jesus Christ didn’t rescue only our “soul” – which, at the end of time and after many “deserved” tribulations, could at last enjoy God’s presence.

Jesus’ salvation is much wider and concerns the whole man: body, soul (psyche, mind, feelings) and spirit. And such a complete salvation was conceived by the same God that many fear so much, and it begins just now!

Once we understand that the whole plan of salvation for man comes from God the Father, and that even Jesus Christ’s sacrifice was first thought in His mind, how could we still fear Him?

Now we could ask: why did God create us? Why such a perfect Being, whole in Himself and fully happy, decided to create man and allowed all the evil we see around us?

WHY DID GOD CREATE US?
AND WHY DO WE SEE SO MUCH EVIL IN THE WORLD?

His reason is found in Wisdom 2,23, where we discover “how” He created us.

“For God created man for incorruption, and made him in the image of His own eternity”

God did not create illness and death. It was not Him who originated unhappiness and the fearful depressions and crisis we undergo. For the Bible says:

“Because God did not make death, and He does not delight in the death of the living. For He created all things that they might exist, and the generative force of the world are wholesome” (Wisdom 1, 13-14).

So much so:

“Through the devil’s envy death entered the world …” (Wisdom 2,24)

If we investigate Scripture, we discover that for man God didn’t even want chronic disease:

“Death is better that a miserable life, and eternal rest than chronic sickness” (Sirach 30,17).

God created us in His own image and likeness and wanted us to enjoy an healthy and fulfilled life, full with joy, and an happy eternity with His Son. He created us to share His Own inheritance. In His complete happiness, God wanted to share His own joy with many other beings created in His likeness.

GOD DID NOT CREATE EVIL …

“Call, O call heaven and earth to witness, for I left out evil and I created good, because I live, says the Lord” (2 Esdras 2,14)

And again:

“For He created all things that they might exist, and the generative force of the world are wholesome, and there is no destructive force poison in them; and the dominion of Hades is not on earth” (Wisdom 1,14).

In order to deeply understand God’s plan concerning the creation of man, we could read a good translation of the letter to Ephesians, where all the points touched so far are clearly exposed, together with God’s expectations for those who are committed to follow Jesus’ teachings, to accept their authority and to receive the power He gives to genuine believers, that is to those who believe in Him on His own conditions, without modifying His message, nor letting out its uncomfortable parts.

… and He expects exalting achievements for us

Here are some passages of Ephesians 3 that we believe are essential, because they express God’s expectations from us:

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father ….that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly

beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,

to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations for ever and ever” (Ephesians 3, 14-21)

God wants the best for you. He loves you, you are precious in His eyes and in you He sees things that you couldn’t presume. In Christ you have such a spiritual potential that you couldn’t imagine; in Him you can be God’s instrument, and cooperate with Him in the fulfillment of His general plan for us.

You need God. But also God needs you. He needs also your cooperation so that His Kingdom might come on earth.

Do you wish to become an active part of His project? Will you commit yourself with His plan, and promote its development on earth?

HOW TO ENTER IMMEDIATELY

IN A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH THE LIVING GOD?

So far we tried to explain, in a simple and elementary way, who is God the Father as a Person. But in order to enjoy the salvation He supplied us in His Son Jesus we need to take some steps, established in His Word.

The Greek word “kerigma” means the first announcement of the gospel, and is the essential part, the core and the starting point of the Christian message. It includes six basic steps that we have just mentioned here below. In order to deepen their knowledge and consider to take such steps, you can read the next article in this link: “THE POWER OF THE FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT”, where we tried to explain them simply and in detail.

THE SIX STEPS OF THE FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT

Ask God the blessing, and the Holy Spirit the help and mental opening to become what you are called to be, and ask the faith needed to believe in these supernatural truths:

God loves you;
You are a sinner;
Jesus already saved you;
Accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior;
Receive the Holy Spirit in your life;
Enter a Christian Community or prayer group.

We will examine these steps one by one, and hope to help you to find Jesus as personal Saviour and as a Living Person: He is the only One who can lead you to the Father.

We do hope that through this explanation you may get an idea about God, more corresponding to the Bible, and to be able to perceive Him in a different and much better way than most people do.

GOD IS CRAZILY IN LOVE WITH YOU, AND HE WOULD HAVE ALLOWED HIS SON’S SACRIFICE EVEN FOR YOU ALONE..