It’s All Relative

Personal Connection with the Word and its Author

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God.

“The Word” is a reference to the Bible. And I would guess that our experiences with the Bible are usually relative to our culture, our family and our friends.

Relatives

My mom was born in Germany in the 1930s. Growing up, the only person she knew of who had a Bible was the priest at her church.

Seems ironic, since the first Bible in Europe was printed on the Gutenberg press in Mainz, Germany. And one of the first proponents of the general populous having Bibles to read for themselves was Martin Luther, also from (what is now) Germany.

So, it wasn’t until she came to America after marrying my dad that Mom first encountered a Bible.

Dad grew up in the Bible belt of the United States, where there was probably a Bible in almost every home. Dad’s family went to church on Sundays and he was baptized as a statement of his repentance and new life in Christ.

My discovery

I didn’t really read a Bible until my teens, at a weekly Christian group. One evening–when the leader explained the concept of salvation–was life changing for me. I very simply, in my own mind, without telling anyone, thanked Jesus for dying for me, and asked him to forgive my sins and let me live in heaven after I died.

One evening… was life changing

In all honesty, looking back, I now realize that I did that for “fire insurance”. (“Fire insurance” refers to believing in God to save you from hell, but you don’t necessarily want him to be the boss of your life.)

[Mom, by the way, also discovered the Bible for herself, at about age 50. She read it throughout the rest of her life, until it was too heavy for her to hold, and told many others about what it said.]

Relationship

I consider myself lucky because when I was young, my church emphasized the importance of reading the Bible.

I am now 67 and still learning. Through studying various parts of the Bible, I’m now quite amazed at how incredibly loving God has been throughout my life, AND throughout the ages to all of humankind.

Knowing that love–that included me–made it easy to make him the Boss.

I’ve learned that rather than following a system of do’s and don’ts, it’s important for me to intentionally talk to God and believe his Word. In short, to have a relationship.

Eternal life is to know you, the only true God, and to know Jesus Christ, the one you sent. John 17:3

Just like a parent, light-years more wise than its child, it behooves me to follow and trust my Father in heaven.

Let’s go back to that first sentence…

… from the Bible, in John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God.”

In that Bible verse, “The Word” is a title of Jesus, the Son of God, who embodied that total life-giving message of God, the Father, to the humans he created and loves.

It IS all “relative”.

And a GREAT reason to celebrate Christmas!

I hope you’ll connect yourself with the Bible and its author. Here are 2 minutes of great reasons to!

Merry Christmas!

Image & video credits, with appreciation to ….
Public Domain Pictures for Christmas Bible image, Guiding Light for group photo, BibleLift.com and Tweeting with GOD for the video [Martin Luther photo is mine]