Our Triune God
If you’ve read one or more of these posts, you already know I’m no theologian. So I hope you’ll cut me some slack as I try and unpack what the Lord has pointed me to . . . the Trinity. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. All God – all the same – yet all different.
Thinking about water helped me understand the Trinity.
H2O is water. It’s the elemental construct . . . the core nature of the stuff. But water is embodied in three major ways; liquid, ice and vapor. All are different, but at their essence, they’re the same.
Water (the liquid) sustains life. It covers 4/5ths of the earth’s surface. We die without it. Water (the vapor) is the core element of our ecosystem. No water vapor, no clouds, no rain, no crops, no life. Ice? Well, not only does it make our drinks pleasant, it makes the world’s weather system work. Without ice in the polar regions, our big blue ball is in a heap of trouble.
God is like H2O. He’s the essential, the elemental, the core. Each of His embodiments has a specific purpose, which we won’t understand until God ‘connects the dots’ for us in Heaven. Richard J. Foster structured his book Prayer on approaching the Triune God this way . . .
Jesus – the inward connection. God the Son, our Savior who lives in and through us. He’s helping us see our faults and failures, but encouraging us as we receive His unconditional love and forgiveness. He’s our personal God, our best friend. We relate to Him because He lived here. And He showed us how to live here. He’s a role model of the highest order, and fully God at the same time.
Father – the upward connection. We pray to “our Heavenly Father”, our Sovereign King and eternal Lover among us. We worship Him. The Creator God. Omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. He’s overwhelmingly awesome!
Holy Spirit – our outward connection. He’s the Empowerer and Evangelist among us, and the ‘G.P.S.’ for this life. “The Spirit of the Lord” rested on Jesus. “The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD” (Isaiah 11: 2). When Jesus left, He sent the Holy Spirit for us . . . to give us the same thing. If we’ll ask Him, ‘the Spirit of the Lord’ will rest on us and give us the spirit of counsel, strength, knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And when He does, the fruit starts to show up. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-discipline.
As H2O is to water, love is to God. Every ‘atom’ of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is love. God is love. He loves us. We are His ‘highest and best creation’. We’re made in His image. He created us to love as He loves. His Son died for us out of love. And the Holy Spirit is our ‘helper’ as we love.
Our God is an awesome God. Any one of these dimensions would have been enough, but from His unfathomable love, He gave us not one but THREE, all in One.
Hallelujah!
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Responses (2)
That was a great post ! Enjoyed the different concepts of Jesus the Holy Spirit and our Heavenly Father you explored. I once heard it explained like this. God is like time. Past Present and Future. Jesuse is the Past. The Holy Spirit is the Present. And the Father is the Future. The 3 are inseparable. For as the past gives way to the present ant future is before us. Jesus is the Past which shows us the nature of the Father. The Holy Spirit is revealing the Past and preparing us for the Future,our Heavenly Father which is yet for us to see. Yet while I was writing this text it was in the present. Which is now in the past. And the future is still before us. As the past moves into the present and the present looks forward to the future. So we can see God like time. Ever moving changeling yet Constance like Time.
Just a thought let me know what you think. Thanks.
In Genesis, God said let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. To me just look at man and you will understand the Trinity. Man is body, mind and spirit. Jesus said, “God is Spirit.” Jesus, after His ressurection ascended into heaven in His resurrected body of flesh. The gospels teach that after His resurrection He ate and was touchable. Admittedly His resurrected body was not subject to the same laws of physics as our bodies of flesh, however it was in this body He ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God the Father. The Holy Spirit is referred to as the mind of Christ by the Apostle Paul. The One God is Body, Mind, and Spirit.