catapult magazine

It is helpful in that it’s good to hear what other think. I still think the whole trinitiy/God and Jesus is something that I find ultimately confusing and strange.
I have considered the Messainic community. I am still deciding on whether it’s for me or not. IT will be interesting to try it out.
As for Pittsburgh, my family is there, but I am a college student going to school outside of PA. I know fo one Messianic congregation here and I am still contemplating the whole thing. But that you for the direction to the one in Pittsburgh. I am not sure yet if I will ever be happy with what one church will be able to provide me, but my assumption is that one day I will settle in a place that has at least something to offer. God will show me a place to go, right? Or wait, or do I mean Jesus? Good question.

It’s possible that I am just really dumb when it comes to understanding the Bible and all that it entails. But the Trinity concept is one I am having trouble grasping. It just doesn’t make sense to me. In the most simplistic way I can conceptualize it, why, if G-d and Jesus are one in the same, why would G-d send “himself” to earth, then pray to “himself” while on earth, and then die on the cross for us and cry out to “himself” and ask why G-d has forsaken him…if he “is” G-d??. Who does that? It just makes so much more sense that G-d is the one and only and that G-d sent his son, a son who was separate from him…part of him, but separate.

Am I just looking at this too simplistically? I just don’t get it, and it’s frustrating, because it makes me nervous about the validity of the rest of the Bible, because it seems as though it’s all in how one or a group of people interpreted a few words. What about, “Hear O Isreal: The LORD our G-d, the LORD is one. Love the LORD with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Deuteronomy 6:4-5. Does this [i:8b0da7b180]not [/i:8b0da7b180]say that G-d is one?

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I’m feeling really lost in this.

The Trinity is a mindtrip. You’re not dumb; you can’t get your mind around God. No one can. God transcends the limits of our minds, and we shouldn’t be surprised. We are creatures, he’s the Creator. He has no beginning, we do. He transcends all space and time, in fact he created both, and we are bound by both space and time. Quite simply, in his nature, who he is, he is entirely and thoroughly different than we are.

We can’t run God down with our minds and pin him with precise rational concepts. Our minds spin ceaselessly without wearing God out. Instead we have to rest in God’s self-revelation of himself. He has revealed himself in Scripture to be one God in Three Persons. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory. I think it was Athanasius who said, “I can’t think of the One, without being driven to think of the Three, or think of the Three without being driven to think of the One.” You see, our finite human minds go round and round in circles without grasping who God is. When we try to pin God down, we settle either for one God or for three Gods. But God is both. What a great God we have, beyond all reckoning and searching out!

At the same time, as those made in the image of God, we are able understand who God is in a real and substantive way. Knowing God, we are encouraged and built up in our faith. God’s revelation of himself in Scripture leads us to confess our limits, even as we are led to stand in awe of the greatness of our God.

Is God Missing?

Nope! He’s right there on the Throne where He’s always been.

Now, He did send the Holy Spirit to fellowship with you and He did send His Word so you could learn how He does things and how He thinks.

I’d recommend getting up early each morning and spending at least a couple of hours reading the Gospels, but start of praising God. He inhabits the praises of His people!