Who Are You, and Where Are You Going?

I was raised to believe that there is only one God, and that the Trinity was wrong because

it was never explicitly mentioned in the Bible. I still believe in a God, but coming to Rehoboth

has changed my perspective on the Trinity and I have come to accept it as Truth. As I have

developed my faith, I have had to face questions just because I claimed to be a Christian. I have

surrounded myself with people with similar beliefs as me and I believe I now have sound

arguments to answer the questions Im posed to the best of my capabilities. My worldview has

been shaped by friends, family, teachers, church and many other social circles; but most of all,

my worldview has been shaped by my own way of thinking and my interpretation of the Bible.

I have always believed in God, and not just because my parents dragged me to church or

tried to force their religion onto me; thats how I was first introduced to the idea of there being a

God, but over time, I began to believe on my own because I saw evidence of God working in my

life, especially through answered prayer. I am a firm believer that God answers prayer, whether

that be the answer we want or not. My strong faith in God is definitely based upon the fact that I

have experienced, first-hand, answered prayer; how am I supposed to doubt a God that has given

me something that I have asked for? I mentioned before that I was initially raised in the

Pentecostal faith, and while in that faith, I was also able to experience different spiritual

experiences that we believed was due to a wave of the Holy Ghost. Whenever I would have a

spiritual experience such as, speaking in tongues, getting drunk in the Spirit, intense worship,

or even after I was baptized at the age of 8, I knew that what I was feeling was something good; I

was never afraid to feel a rush of the Holy Spirit because I knew it was pure. Even though I now

believe in the Trinity instead of the one God of oneness Pentecostal faith, I still believe there is
only one God. I will always have a monotheistic worldview because of my strong faith based

upon solid roots. Since I have come to know more about the Trinity, I understand that it makes so

much sense because without the Trinity, God could not love. The Trinity is based upon

community and love, and I believe God is exactly how the Bible describes him: God is love. He

is called the judge or the many other negative-sounding things, but God is our creator and our

father; even though he is the ultimate judge, he is also our father and only wants whats best for

us. The greatest commandment is to love and we are made in the image of God, so following his

commands would ultimately make us more like him.

The way I think has always been influenced by the Christian worldview; I believe my

own instinctual morals led me to understand that the best way to see life is through a Christian

perspective. Regarding Absolute Truth, I believe that in the Christian faith, Jesus is the Absolute

Truth. I have described my strong faith already, and even though I believe Christianity to be the

only true religion, I am humble enough to acknowledge that I may be wrong, and that Im living

in a lie. I believe Absolute Truth is different for every religion, and that we will never really

know Religious Absolute Truth. However, I believe Christianity is True for me because Ive

experienced it work in my life. I will spread the Gospel, but I will not be ignorant to or

insensitive to other peoples beliefs because, as I said before, I may be wrong myself. Also, when

sharing the gospel, I will not try to push my beliefs onto others because I believe in order to find

Truth, you must want Truth. God always has his door open to us, but we also need to realize that

he cant enter into our lives without us opening our door to him. God gave us freewill and choice

for a reason, so we must use it as he intended because hes not going to force us to believe in

him.
 I believe everyone knows the difference between right and wrong. However, I believe

that some people are twisted (literally) and get satisfaction from doing wrong; people like Ted

Bundy or Charles Manson, for example. The fact that those men went to jail for what they did

proves that society has a standard of morale to uphold. The best way I can describe what I mean

is by using an example similar to a video we watched in class: the video addressed how

something like, say, murder was a crime. The basic principle of murdering people is a crime is

that hurting people is wrong. The very idea of right and wrong is abstract, and yet we all

understand the basics and society acknowledges when things are wrong. I believe cultures that

dont seem to have a handle on the basic idea of morals are that way because we have done

wrong toward them; leaving them behind while we advanced and developed.

In todays advanced society, it is hard to get away from Materialism. I am trying my

hardest to be Theistic in a Materialistic culture. I know that Materialism isnt the right way to

look at the world because of all of my past experiences and present beliefs. I try to see God

through everything, and because of that, I appreciate his design more. I know God was the

ultimate designer of the world because of the intricacy of Creation. God created the world

perfect, and the Fall let imperfection into his Creation; not only into man but into the earth. The

state of the world is very bad because there is so much evidence that we are killing our planet.

We are killing Gods beautiful Creation.

Humans are the very good part of Gods creation because we are able to have an

intimate relationship with us. However, the Fall broke that intimate relationship and now we

have to search for and work for our relationship with God. The Fall made us aware of our sin and

broke our relationship with God. We are broken and messed up because we are not living how

God intended us to live when he first created us. The suffering and brokenness of the world
happened because of the Fall, and the Fall was because of us; we are the cause of the broken

world we live in. The only way to not be broken anymore is to be restored to how we were

initially created. The only way to be restore our relationship with God is through Jesus. He

sacrificed himself for us so that we have to the opportunity to escape our fate of eternal

damnation. We are here on earth because God thought it was good; he wanted to share his love

with someone. Our purpose here is to come to know the Lord so that we may live in his presence

for eternity. We have hope to go back to the good world we were created for and that was created

for us.

Jesus is Gods son that was sent down to redeem us from our sin. Hes important because

he is the only way we can get to God. He introduces this idea of Grace that God has for us; Grace

is what makes Christianity different. It is by Grace we are saved. We are automatically given

Grace as soon as we accept that Jesus died for our salvation. We must put in work afterwards in

order to maintain our relationship with God in this messed up world, but nothing is asked of us in

order to earn Gods approval and our salvation.