Isn't God some old unapproachable guy with a long beard and Jesus is his wimpy Ghandi-like doting son? And who wants to sit in Heaven for freakin' eternity singing lame hymns of praise all day and night even if it is a really beautiful place? I wasn't going to sign up for that!
And the Bible....seriously? Am I supposed to believe it is relevant to today's world? Jonah and the whale? Parting the sea? No sex till marriage? Sure.
These are just some of the questions I probably was never even really sober enough to ask myself, but might have been thinking back in the days of neon lights, one dollar bills and funny-money.
And I can't answer them all in one blog post, but I can give you something to think about for today and eventually I will address all of them.
I've told you that you don't have to 'clean up' before you come to Christ. He'll take you as is. You don't have to stop dancing, stop having sex, stop drinking, blah, blah, blah. All you have to do it take one step at a time toward him. Seek him. Get to know him.
But who is this 'him'? Who is God vs. Jesus and are they really the same and which one do you pray to?
One question just seems to lead to more questions, right? How can you ever get it all figured out? Well, you don't have to. That's why we have faith. We don't have to know all the answers if we have faith, but most of us need SOME kind of answers to at least some of our questions before we can just hand our life over to someone and start making changes.
God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are one body, they are the Trinity. When you pray to one, you pray to all three. They have always been together and existed in love and peace and harmony as three distinct personalities, but all in perfect sync with one another. God's characteristics are vast, but the ones that have mattered the most to me and helped me understand who he really is are that God is love and God is just. God is the part of the Trinity that acts like the CEO and makes things happen. He decides who gets fired and hired. What gets made or un-made and what is best for his company.
Jesus' most important characteristic (according to me) is that he is the part of Trinity (or God-head) that was made into flesh and dwelt among us on the Earth in human form. So, Jesus is the CEO who dressed up as a secretary and worked among all the normal folks and ultimately sacrificed himself for everyone else even though all the other employees were mean to him. (Imagine a CEO of some big company giving up his job, his bonuses, his home, his family, his everything just to make sure his ungrateful employees got the very best. Ha. It would never happen!)
The Holy Spirit is the part of the Trinity that lives inside us when we accept and trust that Christ sacrificed himself for our sins and that Jesus is God as well. The Holy Spirit's personality is quiet and gentle and guides us toward Jesus with a whisper. The Holy Spirit will be quiet if you want him to, after all, he is living inside your body...... over which you have ultimate control. So if you shush him, he'll quiet down. But if you let him lead, he will guide you toward the right choices every time! He's like a built-in GPS.
The Holy Spirit is also the interpreter. The Bible is like another language that you can't decipher completely unless you have an interpreter. And since the Holy Spirit won't dwell inside you until you accept Christ, the Bible might not make a ton of sense to you until you have faith. Don't worry...we'll get to faith soon!
Now these are very simplistic explanations (and I'm sure I'll be criticized for watering it down so much) and there is far more to it, but sometimes you just need a foundation to start layering things on top of!
Getting to know God's character and falling in love with Christ and allowing the Holy Spirit to guide you is the ultimate goal, but it's like a marriage and it takes a courtship period of discovering one another, then steps toward commitment, then a commitment ceremony, then hard work for the first year learning to trust and rely on each other and figuring out all the little kinks and then loving each other as a choice when the feeling of excitement wears off, and staying intimate even when you don't feel like it and reproducing and finally looking back on all your hard work together and being so proud of your team and realizing you could never have done it alone.
God (all three of Him) wants you to join him and begin this adventure. He is that guy you always dreamed of who is sensitive and compassionate, a good listener, romantic and chases you but still has firm boundaries he won't let you cross and makes you feel confident that he is in charge and you are safe and protected. He is that answer to every woman's dream of the perfect man who gets her and respects her and needs her and is fascinated by her, but he is still stronger and wiser and you can't imagine how someone so amazing could love someone like you! The more you get to know him, the deeper the love grows and the more you realize what you thought were his flaws are not flaws at all, but unique characteristics that make you trust him and love him even more.
Some women will deny that this is what they really want deep down. I hope you're not stupid enough to be one of them. It's hard-wired into us by our creator (yep, the same guy) and if you're denying it, it means you have built up a wall of denial so thick that you probably aren't reading this...which is why I can say 'you're stupid'.....because if you're reading this, you are not that kind of girl. Women are fascinated by fairy-tales and romance novels and movies with leading men who exude these God-like characteristics. If you're wondering who God is and what he is really like, watch TV, read a Danielle Steel book, go to Disney World. But be smart enough to know that TV producers of The Bachelor, Ms. Steel and Walt Disney are manufacturing a man-made version of God and spoon feeding it to you because it's what you want. You respond to it. You love it. It's hard-wired into you. But The Bachelor doesn't ever knock on your door, you can't see or touch the hero in the book and you can't afford to stay at Disney World forever. The real God you are craving to fill that hole of desire in your life is just around the corner. He isn't as pushy as you think he is and you'll have to let him know you're interested, but he's a short walk away, sitting on his horse, shining in his armor and waiting to take you away on the adventure of your life!
Revelations 19:16 "On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords."
See, he even has tattoos! I told you He was the One!
