With some of the basic doctrine of the Trinity set in place in the previous blog (because it is important to know God rightly), we can now move on to love. This is where everything in Bible, in doctrine, in the character of God, comes back to. Love. We can have all the right doctrine, and believe it, but if we don't have Love, we have nothing. God is love and if we don't have a relationship with him we have nothing. I think it is best summed up in a song called Believe by Brock Human. He starts by stating what he believes, the Truth's of the Bible, but then he goes on to say, "I believe he loves me, and that's all I need to know." This may sound strange but the reality is that knowledge of God via study, theology, comes out of a relationship with the Trinity. If you really have revelation of the love of God you will want to know him! And it's the revelation of his love for us that is the motivation for everything.
"We love because he first loved us." 1 John 4:19. If we start with doctrine what can and often happens is that we fall in love with our doctrinal view or our dogmatic views. We believe in and love and fight to the death over the facts about Jesus that we believe to be true. The problem is it often stops there and relationship with the God-man, Christ Jesus, is missed. We know all about him, but we don't know him experientially, relationally, emotionally. The Bible turns into a fact book instead of a written expression of God's Love.
The Christian walk cannot be based on emotions, feelings, situations, or circumstance. The Bible is the Truth, Heaven is our reality. But goodness knows that if you are in a relationship of any kind whether friendship, or family, or especially marital, there are are emotions that come with. And not only emotions, all relationships take 2-way communication. This includes our relationship with the Lord.
God is love, thus Jesus (being God) is Love. Jesus is the Cornerstone, the starting point. Jesus, the incarnation of Love, is the foundation. Love is the foundation. If I don't have a relationship with God, I don't have Love. And "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing." (1 Cor. 13:1-3, emphasis mine)
With all that said, I have been learning about the Trinity and my relation to and with, all three Persons. Often when I pray I will imagine myself on a grassy mountain over looking a beautiful mountainous landscape with forests and waterfalls, talking with Jesus. This is prayer, conversing with God. Try imagining yourself in heavenly places, which is actually where really are (see Eph. 2:6), talking with Jesus, it is wonderful! I have learned so much about God during these times spent with Jesus. But as of late when I go to "our mountain" it is not just Jesus that I encounter, but Father and Holy Spirit as well! These are obviously manifestations of the Trinity that look like the human people to help me relate to them a litter easier in conversation. This doesn't have to be what they actually physically look like, because it is clear that both male and female are made in God's image (Gen. 1:26), and God is Spirit (John 4:24), and to top it all off, no one has ever seen the Father (John 1:18). This is the same idea that the book, The Shack, talks about (A must read).
Sidenote: The same applies with these heavenly places that I am seeing, they are aids to show me heavenly realities (principles). Some believe that these 3rd heaven experiences (2 Cor. 12:2) are what heaven literally looks like, others will argue the opposite, for me it doesn't really matter, because when i get to heaven, i don't think the actual landscape of heaven will consume my attention as much as the Man from Heaven will.
Anyway, so I started meeting up with the Trinity on the mountain and at first I wondered why the Father and the Spirit had suddenly started showing up too. God knew what I was thinking and said that they had all been here the whole time, I just hadn't had revelation of that until now. So during my prayer times I start seeing myself on the mountain with the Trinity and we talk sometimes, other times we just enjoy each others company, (one time we even just started to throw the Frisbee a bit :) ).
Sidenote: I know I am probably causing a few of you to be stretched as you read this stuff but all I ask is that you don't throw it out, but just take it to God and ask him about it's validity.
The fellowship with the God head that I have started to experience has been amazing! The only thing I can liken it to is Proverbs 8:30-31, (Jesus "Wisdom" speaking) "I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his (the Father's) delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man." The sheer delight that the Father has for the Son and the joy that the Son takes in his Father, is the same delight Jesus take in us! and we can take the same joy in Jesus as he does in his Father! The Trinity is a family. A family who loves each other so much, and who constantly are glorifying the other Persons of the God-Head. And here is what I took all the previous to say to you:
We are invited into the family and fellowship of the Trinity, through our union with Jesus!
If you are a Christian, you have an amazing family who love you in the Trinity! This is good news! In our union of course we don't obtain the divinity of the Holy One of Israel, but we do get to have perfect fellowship with them at all times! I will close with this verse that basically sums up everything I have been trying to say, and God always says it better anyway :)
"And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit." (Eph. 2: 17-22)
Disclaimer:
As for the what I like to call "dreaming with God" or imagining yourself in heavenly places (i didn't use "visualization" because of it being tainted by the occult use.) the scriptures that come to mind are many but to name a few: Rom.8:5-7; Eph. 4:20-24, Col. 3:1-2 there are many many more if you want them. But you get the general idea. When I think about Jesus, or heaven or birds or anything, for me, maybe not for you, a picture almost always will come to mind. This is our imagination, putting a picture to the subject we are thinking about. I believe that since our spirit is currently in heavenly places, our spirit is seeing heavenly realities and since we also have the Spirit of Jesus in us, who also has seen the depths of the Father's heart and the heavens, it is not to far fetched that we might at times get pictures of heavenly realities as we focus on things above and things of the Spirit. Let it be clear that I do not promote or agree with the worship or deification of these pictures, but I do promote the worship of the One True Triune God who is communicating with me through them, just as he communications through nature or music. With all this said, I still want to make clear that no matter what we see, feel, hear, or experience, none of it is authoritative. Only the Word is. It is the final authority on whether our experiences are of God or not, no matter how wonderful or God-like they seem. All things must be checked through, and submitted to, the Scriptures.
This song based on Song of Songs 2 might help give you a visual of all this:
Dance With Me by Jesus Culture
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