One of the most important Christian doctrines, as it pertains to what we believe about God, is the Doctrine of Trinity. Now I certainly don't have enough time in a few short minutes to cover this essential belief that God is three in one. However, the historic church affirms what we believe the Bible teaches. God eternally exists as three persons, fathers, son and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is one God.
Now your immediate response might be, " I believe this is important but I'm not trying to be a theologian." To which I would say what I recently heard in one of my classes, " the moment we about God, who He is, and what He does, we become theologians. So we are all theologians, the question is weather what we believe makes us good ones or bad ones."
Therefore, since what we believe informs and affects what we do I want to help us be better theologians by knowing God as love. What we see in the Trinity is that His love is relational, constant, and comprehensive. God is a loving relational God in and of Himself and this should encourage all of us to live lives that reflect who He is, by loving and serving others through self-sacrificing, loving relationships.
All too often we have a singular focus, ourselves. Self-love, even self-aggrandizement, and the list can go on and on as we arroneously believe turning inwards can help us. I am not telling you to neglect yourself, but I am saying the best thing we can do is to take our eyes off ourselves and be fully immersed in a right relationship with God and other believers in the Body of Christ.
Self-sacrificing, loving relationships both reflect our God to others and refines our hearts. Knowing and worshiping our God as He truly is, an intimate relationship, a community of love in and of Himself, helps us to be better involved and rightly related in the community of love called the church.
Here is a caution. All too often I hear people talk about themselves too much. I am not talking about offering personal information in response to questions I may ask. I am talking about insecure monologues about all they do and all they want to do, even for God.
But what if the thing people remember about us the most is how much we talked about God, talked about our spiritual family, and maybe not so much that we talked but listened to them talk. This kind of defenrence and serving, and loving is what we see in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as they constantly point to the other with love. It is unity in diversity in its most perfect form.
I want to encourage you to grow in your knowledge of God, and let that inform how you live your life for the glory of God. As God's people, church, we are called to reflect the heart and character of our Triune God. We do this best when we are serving and loving others the most.