What is a person? You are a person; a stone isn’t. You have self-awareness; a tree doesn’t. You can be moral; electricity is amoral. You are alive; a corpse is not. “Person” usually refers to a living human being, although from a Christian point of view “person” also refers to God, and we assume that we are persons with personalities because it was a personal God who created us.
Some do acknowledge that God is absolute, mighty, and rational, but more a supernatural force than a divine person. But the God of the Bible is a person. He is intelligent, creative, and moral. He speaks of himself as “I.”
Indeed, the idea that God speaks at all assumes that he is a personal being. God plans; God acts; God intends. He has will and wisdom. He has many names. He wants us to know him. If God were not personal, we could not pray, and we would not worship. If God were merely a force, we would have no guidance, no comfort, no discipline.
One of the defining characteristics of a person is the ability to engage in relationships. Rocks don’t have relationships. Persons talk to each other, they seek to understand each other, they make choices that shape their relationships with each other. Persons (from persona, “mask”) have faces, or public presentations of themselves. Unlike stars or water or trees, there is a dynamic interaction between persons. Persons know other persons–not just know about, or store information on, but comprehend, care for, and commit to.
I have to admit that when our children were born, I probably didn’t really see them as persons. They appeared to be little creatures whom we served by putting food in one end and getting by-products out the other. My wife, of course, saw this as a wonderful relationship, but I was really waiting for the first ball game or the first swim in the lake. But it didn’t take that long. All it took for me was the day the first responsive smile spread across that small face–eyes wide open, a gutteral “g-aaaaa,” which meant something-or-other. See a smile, and the first thing you think is, there’s a person in there! And I want to know what’s behind the smile.
[Mel expands on all this, including explanations of how Christianity is different from Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and other world religions in his book I Want to Believe: Finding Your Way in an Age of Many Faiths. You can get this book free today when you order a copy of Patterns: Ways to Develop a God-Filled Life. Order HERE.]
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This is a wonderful way of defining the personhood of God….He is not an obscure entity. I live in an area where there are many moslems…..some of the women are totally covered apart from their eyes;their persona is lost….I cannot see how they feel….happy,sad,angry,frightened,sick…..the list goes on.How sad that the rules of a relegion should seek to destroy peoples persona,personalities, or just the fact that they are a person,and not a stone,flower or tree.
If God wasn’t a living, breathing “person”, I would be lost and devoid of all hope and the will to live. The Father is Spirit, Jesus is the Son, God in the flesh & the Holy Spirit is the friend who lives in me to lead me through the darkness, three yet one. He is the one who saved me and put my feet on solid ground. He filled my heart with supernatural peace and joy unspeakable and a desire to keep on keeping on. How foolish, how pointless it would be to pray to nothing, knowing that no one is actually listening or caring or is capable of helping you in any way. Indeed, how sad it must be to live in this world without the Truth and the tangible blessings He is so willing to give everyone who asks so they too can have the hope they need to carry on in this world. Thank you and bless you Lord God!!
This is such a simple yet profound explanation of the Almighty God we serve. He is such an awesome and interactive GOD. I am privileged to know and serve HIM. Please keep it coming. May His Blessings be upon us all today.
Something so amazing about babies is that they smile in utero as well, suck their thumbs, get the hiccups–God is so amazing–what a Creator! What a personal God, who knows us and invites us to know Him, thank You Jesus Christ!
This reminds me of the first time my now 2 1/2 month old grandaughter looked me square in the eye and smiled. I was a gonner.
I have had the pleasure of being the parent of 5 children. I don’t remember when it happened but at some point in parenting I begin to see unique personalities develop. For us this came to the for-front when we had twins. Our twins were as different as day and night. We got to see two unique personalities develop together.
Your thought led me to the thought of what it would have been like to live in the family of Jesus. What would it have been like to live 30 years with the Son of God as Mary did? I am sure that He had a personality. What would His personality have been like? We don’t know much about what that was like because Mary didn’t give us a record other than probably what she related to Luke. However. we are given a clue in John 2. This when He turned the water into wine. The one thing that stuck out about this account was Mary. She told Jesus that they had no wine. He responded by saying what is that to you and Me. Then Mary told the servants what He tells you do, you do it. Some have thought that He gave a her a clue in His answer but I don’t think He did. I am sure that she knew that He would respond to this problem because she knew His personality. She had lived with Him 30 years.
Your weekly devotions have been a real blessing. Thank you.
God created us in His own image, therefore we inherited the “person” from Him. It’s also good to remember that God is a spirit and not a physical person, although through the manifestation of His works we see the physical part of Him . We are also spirits though. We feel His presence, we hear His voice, and so more.
Always enriching to read your articles Pastor Mel!If God is a Person as you have firmly established in your article, then relationships are of GREAT VALUE to Him, it is even more exciting to realize that of all creation-it is only mankind that was created to in the image and the likeness of God…….in other words we are the only creation that can RELATE with the PERSON of God intimately(IN A PERSONAL WAY)….trees cannot, stones cannot, the birds cannot,the creatures of the field cannot and certainly the creatures of the sea cannot!
Thanks for the reminder of who we are in Christ. This devotional just makes me feel more closer to God and how thankful I am that he chose to have a personal relationship with us as humans. Angels in heaven are spirit beings and not of human form. So how joyous it is we have experienced God in flesh, Christ; and spirit form, the Holy Spirit.