We live in a world of mobile phones, e-mails and pagers which should all help us to communicate more effectively with each other. In an age when communication is so easy, perhaps you have asked yourself the question, "If there is a God, why doesn't He communicate with us?"
Our problem with God is that He is invisible. Imagine with me for a minute that someone called Gerencser Janos living in a small town in Hungary wanted to communicate with you. To all intents and purposes, to you, Gerencser Janos is invisible. You have never met him, you do not know him. Furthermore he lives in a different country and speaks another language. What options are available to him if he wants to communicate to you?
Well, he could write to you. That would be a reasonable level of communication. The only snag is that he would write to you in Hungarian, which would mean that you might need to get someone to translate the letter for you.
A better option available to Janos would be that he could send a messenger from himself to you. It would have to be someone who has met Janos and knows him well, someone who is fluent in English and who also knows you. The messenger could tell you all about Janos, his character, what he likes, what he doesn't like etc. That would be a pretty good level of communication.
But what would be the best form of communication? Surely it would be if Janos fully adapted himself to you. He could do that by learning English until he was fluent, and then coming to this country and meeting you face to face.
We can apply this illustration to God. In Old Testament times God communicated with humankind through messengers. For example God revealed Himself and His character, His likes and dislikes, to Moses, and then Moses told the rest of the people about God. Things about God were written down so that God also communicated through writing. These were good methods of communication, but the best was yet to come.
Jesus Christ is God's best communication to man. In Jesus Christ God fully adapted Himself to us, in order to communicate most clearly with us. The invisible God took on a visible form, the form of a man. A man who looked the same as everyone else, and who spoke the same language as everyone else.
In the person of Jesus Christ of Nazareth God actually walked on this earth. That's incredible! Jesus is God revealed. Jesus Himself said, "Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father" ( John 14v9).
The question this Christmas is, "Have you listened to what God has said through the life and words and deeds of Jesus Christ, or have you ignored this most clear communication?"
By Andrew Stewart
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Details of 2008 houseparty:
23rd - 30th August 2008
Stanbridge Earls School,
Romsey, Hampshire
Mums and Tots
Friday morning 9.30am
At the church