I believe in the words of the Apostle’s creed. I believe those words and my own words are insufficient to express what I sense is the wonder and majesty of the Almighty, God of our fathers and mothers, Yahweh, Allah, Father of the only begotten son Jesus Christ who as loving son called Him Abba or Daddy. God, whose name was not spoken by early Hebrews out of awe and fear, is creator of all wonder and yet calls to us to be in communion with Her/Him as a parent to a child.
God was manifest in the creation and became incarnate in Jesus for us that we may return in wholeness as we were created. I believe the Kingdom of God is at hand. It is here and now, in this moment and the next. I believe at the end of what we humans call our lives there is another existence. But if we focus on the next life, we are denying God’s gift to us in this life and in this amazing creation.
I believe that I see through a glass darkly. I believe I will never know with perfect knowledge in this life. I believe those whom I have heard profess perfect knowledge and believe their words derived from scripture or other sources totally encompass or describe the Almighty, are trying to circumscribe that which has no limits. Often I believe our God is too small. That is our ability to comprehend the “Great I Am” is inadequate, so we tend to accept a concept of God far smaller than scripture, knowledge and experience suggest. Too often definitions of the divine fit our perceived temporal needs.
I believe in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus that I am reconciled to the Almighty.
My guidepost from the Old Testament is Micah 6:8 -
"What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God."
My guidepost from the New Testament is from Matthew 22:37-40 -
"Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
God was manifest in the creation and became incarnate in Jesus for us that we may return in wholeness as we were created. I believe the Kingdom of God is at hand. It is here and now, in this moment and the next. I believe at the end of what we humans call our lives there is another existence. But if we focus on the next life, we are denying God’s gift to us in this life and in this amazing creation.
I believe that I see through a glass darkly. I believe I will never know with perfect knowledge in this life. I believe those whom I have heard profess perfect knowledge and believe their words derived from scripture or other sources totally encompass or describe the Almighty, are trying to circumscribe that which has no limits. Often I believe our God is too small. That is our ability to comprehend the “Great I Am” is inadequate, so we tend to accept a concept of God far smaller than scripture, knowledge and experience suggest. Too often definitions of the divine fit our perceived temporal needs.
I believe in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus that I am reconciled to the Almighty.
My guidepost from the Old Testament is Micah 6:8 -
"What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God."
My guidepost from the New Testament is from Matthew 22:37-40 -
"Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”