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--- jn_en_2019_12_10 [2019/12/10 07:56] – created potthast
+++ jn_en_2019_12_10 [2019/12/11 07:27] (current) – potthast
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 ====== What is going on? II ... ======
-Tuesday, Dez 10, 2019.
+Tuesday, Dez 10, 2019. How do you come to conclusions with respect to God? How do you
+decide what to think about this basic question? We need to talk a little bit about our
+communication with God. How can you communicate with him?
+The question of how to hear from God is linked to the overall situation of humans in general.
+If God is there, how does he interact with us humans? This is one of the basic questions
+people have been asking for a long time. Is God a hidden God? Can you live with him
+on a daily basis? How does it work? What does the Bible say about this?
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-**  ... **
+** Let them hear ... **
+The question how God is talking to humans is taken up in the bible in many places. The basic
+answer it gives is that God wants to live with us humans, and he wants to talk to us. He
+wants to be there, day by day. He wants to be the determining person in our life!
+Jesus talks about a story, where people realize that God lives indeed, and that faith has
+severe consequences. And their conclusion is that they want to talk to their family and friends
+to tell them that it is really important. They want to send a dead person, to convince them
+that all the biblical statements of faith are true. But this is rejected by God. Jesus
+tells us the following words instead:
+<color #aa0000>
+But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’
+</color> (Luke 16, 29)
+The first thing we need to do is to listen to Moses and the Prophets. The communication with
+God starts with the biblical scriptures. It does not end there, but the bible is the reference
+point of our communication with God. Here, Jesus refers to the Old Testament scriptures,
+the Jewish books. The "let them hear" is an important statement about how God wants our
+communication with him start and where he sees the centre of this communication.
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-**  ...**
+** The Spirit ...**
+Both the Old and the New Testament also talk about the spirit of God, who comes to believers.
+The spirit talks through the prophets. The spirit is the main driver of the communication
+between God and us. Jesus says himself that he will send the spirit after his death and
+resurrection, to be with us.
+Thus, the biblical testimony is complemented by the spirit. It is not different from the
+presence of the spirit, since all the biblical books have been written "in the spirit". It is the
+same spirit, who talks through the bible and who comes to believers.
+But it is an important part of Christian faith and experience that when you trust your life
+into God's hands through Christ Jesus, you receive the spirit of God. With this spirit, your
+life changes, since he is God's power to experience his presence.
+You can communicate with God through prayer, meaning that you talk and you listen as well. Prayer
+is a two-way communication. Through the spirit God talks to you, by pointing you towards
+biblical insight, by giving you thoughts, wisdom, images and visions. The spirit clarifies things
+by widening our mind. Very simple facts can talk to you, when the spirit of Jesus is there.
+Communication with God through the spirit works in a fantastic and very satisfying way.
 (Roland Potthast)