Who is this God?

To be perfectly honest with you, I still do not understand FaceBook.  At my age - I suppose, I am more interested in the people involved and not what they have done, are doing or even plan to be doing.  We live according to the instincts we have developed in our lifetime and that means, each and everyone of us behave differently.  There are similarities, of course, but that suggests that we do not have a grasp of why we were created in the first place.

Who is this God, we ought to ask.  What follows is little more than my own personal opinion, but since I have been consciously "walking" with Him for almost 40 years, I believe I know Him, well.

Yesterday, I was present at a memorial service for a good friend. Jerry DeVolder by name.  It was held in our church and that is where I met him.  He was a bit younger, but as I listened to some of the things he had said  to others, I became aware that he was a quite a bit wiser.  That was verified by the numbers of his friends who recognized that he had a terrific sense of humor.  Well, I believe I know something about humor by the jokes I enjoy and the people who employ them, but I sense that the jokes I have heard along the way are fading away.  Now, we are besieged with "sight" jokes.  Apparently, the "experts" believe it isn't supposed to be funny if there is no action involved.

I will really miss Jerry as now, I won't have an opportunity to learn more from him.

And I believe, in a very real sense, God planned it that way.

Remember, our relationships to the One we call God all started in a place called the garden.  Yes, you have heard that the first couple sinned and as a result, they were cast out of their home grounds.  We never hear any more about them, but as we continue we read about others, literally, thousands of them, and as we put ourselves in their positions in life, we are able understand about our own lives.  I used to hate the chapter that dealt with the "begats" - I trust you know what I mean.  As I began to sense that God was involved in my life, I asked, "Why, are we supposed to remember these confusing names?"  It was as though He responded, "Listen, you can change their names to ones that are more familiar to you, but the persons would still be there as they are important because they were involved in the times in which they lived".  It also made me start to believe, God cares enough for each one of us that He can recall our names, regardless of our individual significance in the times in which we are involved.

Having said that, let me say this, the reason I believe there is a God, a Creator, is because the Bible has taught me about the significance of the individuals whose names are recorded there.  And since we know there are relatively few people of significance involved in our own lives, it seems to me that we all ought to pay more attention to our Biblical counter parts.  I have learned this because of the fact I wanted to forget my childhood and the people who loved me then, and I discovered it was easy to "use" others rather than obey the most basic commandment of God - we are to love others, all others.

If a person cannot understand that, I urge them to make sense of the Tenth commandment, "Thou shalt not covet anything that belongs to anyone else" - my interpretation.  I've known lots of people and I have yet to meet the first one who does not "covet" what others have. at least to some degree.  Those who dictate their interpretations of God's word makes them hypocrites when it comes to the most basic of all of God's laws.  That is why the New Testament - in reality, boils our obligations to God down to this - we are to love one another.

And yes, I know we have interpretations of the word - love, offered by modern scholars, but it was Jesus who taught us, "Greater love has no one but this, that one lay down his life for his friends."  (John 15:13)

Who are my friends?  The next person I meet and the next one, and so on.  We, who identify ourselves as Christians, do not have it easy.  There are "bad" people everywhere, not just those who we want to believe that they do not believe as we do.  It may be just because they have yet to meet one of us.  Our problem is that we must first understand who God is.

I know, I walked under that delusion for almost 45 years.  I had been attending church for almost all of those years and thought I was a good man.  Then, it was revealed I was not.  There was no escaping from that fact.  I knew that I knew and I was determined to find out - why?   And I did, I had been "worshiping" the wrong "Gods" and there were many.

Upon examination, I discovered the reality of the One true God and I have been blessed as we walked together, day by day.  Nothing happens in my life that cannot be explained by a simple prayer, asking for His help.  It isn't magic or "voo doo" religion, it is juts the way that it is

This God - to me, is as close to me as my next breath.  If you have doubts, you have my address.  Let's talk about Him and what He would do if you began to follow Him as I have.