Converting You Is Not My Job

It occurs to me that if I'm going to write about God in this spot, it would be helpful for me to put right out front what I believe about God. That way you, my dear reader, don't have to look for Deeper Meanings, of which I have none.

So here it is. I believe:

1. God is. That's where it starts, isn't it? Omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, all the omnis.

2. God is love. God loves me, and every other human. God created everything (and it doesn't make one bit of difference to me how He created it), but humans have a special place in His heart.

3. I am a sinner. I am in good company, though; so is every other human. And by "sinner" I don't necessarily mean I've killed someone, joined a skinhead group, or done whatever your definition of a "bad" thing might be. I sure as heck have envied and gossiped and have successfully and knowingly used expired coupons (whoops, cheated the grocery store there).

4. God is perfect, and can't have a relationship with a sinner. 

5. Because He loves me (see step 2) God sent His Son to earth as a human, and by accepting his own humiliating and human death, Jesus took my sin on himself so I could have a relationship with God.

6. I, and every other human, can know God because of the sacrifice Jesus made. 

And that's it. I could give you Bible references for each of the points above (oh, I forgot to mention that I believe the Bible), but as theologian Karl Barth pointed out, this set of beliefs was summarized neatly in song you may have heard:

Jesus loves me, this I know,
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong,
They are weak but He is strong.

Please be assured that I am not trying to persuade you to my way of thinking--the Bible makes it pretty clear that beyond letting you know that I have chosen Christ, I'm not responsible for your spiritual decisions. Converting you is not my job; that's between you and Him.

I am not a theologian, I am not a scholar, I'm just a person trying to know God a little better every day and writing about that process.

This is where I start.