The Trinity, or one God in three persons, sometimes seems like a human construct designed to explain something about God which ends up so difficult to grasp that it then needs to be explained itself. And that is probably about right. We do our best to find a way of describing the complex personality of God, but when we get to Heaven we might well find out that the reality is more subtle and more complicated. Yet whether or not we can fully understand it (and I have posted something recently to try to help understand the structure of the Trinity), what is perhaps more important is what it means to us in terms of our experience of God.
How do you think of God when you are praying? Probably the most common way is Jesus. After all, he came to Earth and became fully man as well as fully God, so we have more in common with him. He is the person who died for us to save us from the consequences of our sins and now shares his resurrection life with us; it is through faith in Jesus that we are saved (Galatians chapter 3, verse 26) and have the right to enter Heaven. Alternatively, if we pray something like, "When I look around at creation it makes me marvel at who you must be to have made all this," we are maybe looking at the other aspect of the the Trinity - the one God who made the Universe, with each of the three persons being involved in that one act.
We can have a living relationship with each of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as well as with the one God that they all are, Yahweh
Clearly we can express our love, gratitude etc to Jesus for who he is, what he has done for us and his great love for us. Jesus, though, didn't want us to concentrate just on him. He taught us to start our prayers with, "Our Father." Similarly, he said that we can ask things of the Father directly and encouraged his disciples to do that (John chapter 16 verse 23). Part of Jesus' mission was to open up a direct communication channel for us to his Father.
Equally, Jesus wants us to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit. He was very excited about the fact that when he went back to Heaven the Holy Spirit would come to us (John chapter 16, verse 7) and it was then that we would be empowered (Acts chapter 1, verse 8). The Holy Spirit is the person of God who lives in us in a very intimate way. He is the one who is willing to be with us day by day, moment by moment. He is the one who causes spiritual fruit to grow in us (love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, patience, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control, as listed in Galatians chapter 5, verse 22). He is the one who empowers us with his gifts (word of wisdom, word of knowledge, faith, the working of miracles, prophecy, tongues, interpretation of tongues, healing and discernment of spirits, listed in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verses 7 - 11) so that we can preach the word of God powerfully, and with signs and wonders following as a testimony to its truth.
So the Trinity can be very real to us. We can relate to each of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit individually, and also to God as the One, Yahweh as he called himself in the Old Testament. Let us make the most of this great privilege and foster relationship with all of who God is.
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