When you’re a new believer (or even a non-believer), it’s often difficult to understand how God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit can all be one.
This is how I reconcile the Trinity for myself. I hope the explanation will help you understand. There is the Godhead (which we know as God). The Godhead, however, has three distinct personalities, if you would, each with it’s own purpose.
God is the creator and the adopter. He has adopted us into His family. We are His children. When we think of Him, it should be as a Father. Fathers (most) love their children unconditionally. They are not always pleased with their children, but they love them unconditionally nonetheless. Consider yourself. You love your children so much, you would do almost anything for them. But there are times when they do things you are not happy about. That doesn’t mean you love them any less. It’s BECAUSE you love them so much that you want to teach them the right things—you want to give them the best of everything. And in doing so, you know you must reprimand them at times. You do not do this because you are mean. You do this out of love for your children, in order to set them on the right path. When they do things that are wrong (expecially when they’re older and no longer under your roof), you will cry for them. You can teach them the right things, but you can’t MAKE them do the right things. And it hurts us as parents to see our kids doing the wrong things, especially when we’ve already been there and can impart our wisdom on them so that they don’t have to make the same mistakes. But they don’t listen.
Well, the same applies to God. In His loving way, He guides us. He gives us everything we need and cries for us when we make mistakes or when we get hurt. But He NEVER stops loving us! How wonderful is THAT! Unconditional love. No matter WHAT we do, God always loves us. He may not like what we’ve done, but He ALWAYS loves us!
Jesus is our Redeemer. Because of our sin, we were separated from God. Jesus came to Earth and lived a totally blameless life. He, like a sacrificial lamb, was slaughtered as atonement for our sins forever. Because He did that, we have been reconciled to God and can have a relationship with God. Before that time, we were not acceptable to God and could not have a relationship with Him. When Jesus said His final words, “It is finished,”, He did not mean sin was gone, nor did He mean He is dead, He meant that He had now taken on all our sin, taken on the judgement that should have been ours, so that we might live and have a relationship with God. Jesus redeemed us—He paid the price for our sins.
The Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance. He is given to us when we are born again as our guide, as our conscience, as our protector. Those little thoughts that creep into your mind all the time (i.e., you need to call so-and-so) are not intuition. They are from the Holy Spirit. When you do or say something, and you get this “feeling” in the pit of your stomach or a voice in your head that says, “you shouldn’t have said that”, THAT is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit CONVICTS us! Listen to Him! He is there to always keep your feet on the right path. He also gives you POWER to speak boldly for God. He gives you whatever you need. All you have to do is ask. Ask for strength. Ask for wisdom. Ask for knowledge. Ask for a loving heart. Ask for forgiveness. He will give it to you as long as you are sincere in asking and repent of whatever you may have done wrong.
Well, I could go on and on. But I’ll leave it at this. I am still learning. Everyday I learn something new. I’m just now learning about the Holy Spirit. Read Ephesians—it’s only 6 chapters—and you will learn all about the gift of the Holy Spirit that God gives to believers. It is so hard for me to even fathom how awesome God is. He has provided us everything we need. He loves us and has given us so much. And we don’t have to do anything but believe and accept His gift! Once you DO accept it, God sends the Holy Spirit to dwell inside you. The Holy Spirit works on you to change your ways. We do not have to do anything to receive our gift, but once we have it, the Holy Spirit changes you inwardly so that you WANT to do things for God. You WANT to serve others. You WANT to love others. And you WANT to share that good news with others. That’s how God’s kingdom increases—you save one at a time for Jesus. And not necessarily with words, even. Your actions and how you live your life are a testimony in themselves.
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Copyright 2005 by Debbie Pettitt, webmaster for A Heart for Jesus.For more information about Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit or the Trinity, or if you would like to talk about your journey with the Lord, please visit my blog, A Heart For Jesus.
