There is evidence that God is and there is evidence that indicates God is not. No one can ignore the evidence in either case. I personally, have many reasons for believing in God, but the one inescapable reason is the testimony of Jesus about God and about himself (Belief). I believe Jesus is trustworthy. The one piece of overwhelming evidence for me that God really is has come through the personal relationship (Faith) I have known through the years with Jesus.
The Christmas narrative is the story of God breaking through and giving the concrete gift of himself to humanity through Jesus. It is through this gift of Jesus that God reveals and discloses God’s own nature—Love at the heart of all things. When we are open to this gift all of life is thrown into a new pattern. It doesn’t make the person in relationship with Jesus any better than anyone else, or more moral, or more successful, or more right, or more just. What it does do is free us from the entanglements within ourselves. Love frees us. He gives himself totally to us in love and asks that we give ourselves totally in love to him. Like all relationships, this doesn’t take place overnight, or in a year or two; it is a journey that goes on and on.
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| Ausable Chasm, Adirondacks, New York--2011 |
If we accept this gift of God, the gift of his own life, we cannot remain what we have been; we will become a new creation—whatever that may mean for each of us (Love doesn’t lump us all together). We have to trust that whatever may happen in this relationship will be right, because God is doing it and whatever emerges will be rooted in love.
What will we do with the gift on this tenth day of Christmas? What will happen if we open ourselves and let him come in; if we give him all that we are? What will we be as he begins to work with us? What will we be when he is done with us? This is the great risk of faith—not only to believe that Jesus is trustworthy, but to actually enter into a relationship with him.
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