Faith Response

Regarding what my faith means to me, I’ll have to start with a little background of personal (although shared by others that I’ve talked to) philosophy and worldview, along with a smidgen of the nature of humanity. You might have heard some of this before or already agree with it, but bear with me, if you don’t mind.

            So this God I believe in is basically the Creator of Everything. Without Him, there would be absolute nothingness. He is unaffected by the laws of the universe because He created them—time, gravity, all of it. He is absolutely perfect in every aspect of His being.

            So God created the universe, and He created us. We are His children, and as His beloved creations, He wants to have a personal relationship with each one of us. Along with being all-powerful, God is also the epitome of unconditional love, or agape in the Greek. Several times in the Bible God is referred to as being Love itself. I’m sure you know about the Garden of Eden and the fall of man. If you think about it, this is an incredible expression of God’s love for us. Agape, for us as humans, is a decision. You decide if you’re going to love and devote yourself to someone in that way. Doing something because you’re forced or obligated to is not an expression of love at all. This is why God allowed us to have free will. A relationship has two sides, and the love goes both ways. He loves us so much, He didn’t force us to love Him like little pre-programmed robots. He lets us choose. He loves us either way, but He will let us decide whether or not we want to enter that relationship with Him.

A little bit about that whole love thing. You can say you love someone, fine, but that doesn’t mean a thing unless you live like what you say is true. And the love I’m talking about means sacrificing your own wants and needs for the good of the other person, not just love as a feeling. God is absolutely perfect, but since we as humans are obviously not, we’re not compatible with God in our state of imperfection. That’s why God sent Jesus. John 1:1 and 2 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” This “Word” is Jesus. God’s plan from the beginning was to use Jesus to make a relationship with Him possible. Since we are imperfect, as already stated, we needed something to atone and pay for our sins. Jesus was crucified on a Roman cross, died, and was buried in order to serve as that atoning sacrifice.

I’m so sorry this took like seven years.