For the beginning Christian
Published 05/03/2018
How to find God and the path to God? Is it even possible to understand where to look for God? The Bible says that no one has ever seen God, yet millions of people around the world want to find God in their lives.
In this short article we will try to find answers to these two questions, especially since the Bible gives us very good clues about where and how to look for God.
Where to find the way to God
At the very beginning of His relationship with man, God dwelt among people in the Garden of Eden. And everything was fine with them... We see such a picture of the description of the world in the first chapters of the book of Genesis. After Adam and Eve sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, God separated from people, since God cannot have anything to do with sin.
God began to communicate with people through His prophets and angels. God came to people in dreams and visions. He transmitted His laws through His proxies. One of these people was Moses, to whom God gave the well-known Ten Commandments (in fact, there were several hundred of them, but that’s not about that now). Thus, a person could learn about God's will for his life from the commandments left by God and passed down through generations for thousands of years.
And so, at the beginning of a new era, God sent His only Son to earth - Jesus Christ. And, by the way, with the coming of Jesus Christ to earth, a new era really began here - after all, from the birth of Christ we began the countdown of the new millennium.
And here we come directly to our question - where can we find the path to God? No one can answer this question better than Jesus Christ Himself and the authors of the New Testament. Let's read some Bible passages about this. This is what is said in the book of Acts of the Holy Apostles:
“Since God, who created the world and everything with which it is full, is the Lord of heaven and earth, He does not live in temples built by human hands, and it is not human hands that serve Him, for He never needs anything. It is He who gives everything to man - life, breath, and everything in general. God created first one, and after him all the nations of the earth, and determined the times and the limit of their habitation so that they would seek God; and perhaps they will rush to Him and find Him: after all, He is so close to each of us. For in Him we live, move and have our being, just as some of your poets have said: “For we are His kind” (Acts 17:24-28).
When a person thinks about where to look for God, he first of all thinks about a place, about some place on earth where he could be closer to God. But there is no such place on earth. People visit “holy places”, try to look for special temples or places of pilgrimage, but the Bible says clearly: “God does not live in temples...”. God is the Lord of heaven and earth. Another similar passage says:
“However, the Most High does not dwell in a house built by human hands, for, as the prophet says: “The heavens are My throne, and the earth is My footstool. What kind of house will you build for me? - says the Lord, - or, where is my resting place? Was it not by My hand that all this was created?” (Acts 7:48-50)
The entire Universe belongs to God. There is no point in looking for God in a man-made temple, no matter how beautiful this or that temple may be. One day, the disciples of Jesus Christ decided to surprise Him with the greatness of the Jerusalem Temple, look what came of it:
“Jesus was walking from the temple when His disciples came to Him to show Him the temple buildings. In response, He said to them: “Do you see all this? Truly I say, no stone will be left upon another here; everything will be destroyed” (Matthew 24:1-2).
Jesus' prophecy about the destruction of Jerusalem was fulfilled with amazing accuracy just a few years later. A lot has changed since Jesus came to earth. God Himself descended to earth in the body of a man. If someone wants to seek God, then he must seek His Son - Jesus Christ. This is what Jesus Christ says about this:
“What I teach does not come from Me, but from Him who sent Me. If a person wants to do what is pleasing to God, he will find out from whom this teaching is: from God or from Me Myself” (John 7:16-17).
“Jesus answered: “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I am from God, and now I am here. I did not come of my own free will; it was He who sent Me” (John 8:42).
In these and many other passages in the Bible, Jesus clearly states that He came from God. Jesus says that if a person wants to know where to find God, he will understand that he must turn to His son - Jesus Christ.
Therefore, if you really want to find God, you need to understand two important things. The first is that there is no need to look for any special place where God dwells. The entire Universe belongs to God, and the earth is His footstool. And second - if you want to find God, look for His Son - Jesus Christ.
What Jesus Christ taught and said about God is recorded in the New Testament. Start reading and studying the New Testament. There is simply no other way if you really want to seek God. After all, only in the New Testament is the primary source of knowledge about God.
This article provides only basic information and directions for searching for God. If you want to understand this issue more deeply, write to us through the contacts section, we will help you study the foundations of Christianity. On our website you can find hundreds of stories of Christians from all over the world about their spiritual search for God.
Find your strength
One of a person’s goals for this incarnation is to search for his god, to find the force that supports him, to establish a connection with his god. Absolutely everyone has this power, since a person has a soul that has a source. And this source is the god who once gave birth to her. The soul can be generated by old ancient gods, whose names we don’t even know anymore.
A person’s big task is to figure out which deity he belongs to, remember, or at least somehow realize. If this is impossible to do, then finding a god who is with you absolutely resonates. And suddenly you understand - this is my God. All the events from the legends that happened to him are about you. If you were in his place, you would do exactly the same. And the events that are described in his life are also your events, because this definitely happened in your life. But for this you need to know, study, look for information about your god. Find and establish sufficiently close contact with him. Then the magic of the law of attraction will turn on and it will attract its own.
When you leave this world, you will essentially connect with yourself. Because your soul is part of the consciousness of some god, you just don’t remember which one right now. And the main task of a person is to find his strength, his deity, to intuitively feel.
How to recognize God?
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Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
(Matthew 5, 
.
And we know that we have come to know Him by keeping His commandments.
(1 John 2, 3).
He who does not love has not known God, because God is love.
(1 John 4, .
Taste and see that the Lord is good
(Ps. 33:9).
How can you explain the sweetness of honey to those who don’t know? Taste and see
. The feeling in experience is clearer than any word. Love for God is not something acquired through teaching. For it was not from anyone else that we learned to admire the light, to be attached to life; not another who taught us to love our parents or teachers. So, or even more, it is impossible not to learn the love of God; but along with the structure of a living being, I mean a person, some kind of law is implanted in us, in the form of a seed, which itself contains incentives so that we attune ourselves to love.
Saint Basil the Great (330-379).
The only way to know God is kindness.
Venerable Anthony the Great (IV century).
The path to knowledge is dispassion and humility, without which no one will see the Lord.
Venerable Hesychius of Jerusalem (5th century).
The best and truest knowledge of God is not that which is developed through the efforts of reason and the sweating of the brain, but that which is kindled by heavenly fire in the hearts and brings into the soul Divine light, more clear and convincing than all rational evidence. To seek knowledge of God only in books and scriptures means to seek the living among the dead. Look for God within yourself!..
Saint Leo the Great.
Rejoice in your heart that God alone is the cause and beginning of such diverse, so great and so wondrous perfections revealed in creatures, that He Himself immeasurably combines in Himself all kinds of perfections... If you do this, my beloved, then you can do it through your five senses learn the knowledge of God, ascending with your mind from creatures to the Creator. You must always have a living desire to serve the one God in every activity, and to serve in a way that is pleasing to Him...
Venerable Nicodemus the Holy Mountain (1749-1809).
We must fervently pray to the Lord that He would give love for Him into the hearts of all of us.
Venerable Ephraim the Syrian (IV century).
Christ is hidden in the Gospel, and anyone who wants to find Him must first sell all their possessions and buy the Gospel in order not only to find Him, perhaps by reading, but also to accept Him by imitation of His life in the world. For those who seek Christ, says Saint Maximus, must seek Him not outside, but within themselves.
Venerable Peter of Damascus (8th century).
Nothing can bring the heart closer to God than almsgiving, and nothing produces such silence in the mind as arbitrary poverty. Brother! I command you: on the scales of your reasoning, let alms always prevail over all other types of good, until you feel the alms that God has for the world. May mercy be a mirror for us and may we be able to see in ourselves the likeness and true image of the perfection found in the nature and being of God. Do you want to enter into communion with God with your spirit, accepting the sensation of that sweetness that is not enslaved to the senses? Follow alms. When it inhabits you, then holy beauty is formed in you, by which a person becomes like God. I will be surprised if there is a person in whom delight does not flare up in relation to this nature and who at the same time claims that he knows what the love of God is. If you desire to taste the love of God, my brother, think, meditate and remember about His properties, about His benefits and His holy nature, and let your mind wander in this for every moment of your life, and from this you will realize how inflamed with love all parts of your soul, as a burning flame falls on your heart, and the desire for God increases in you, and from love for God you come to perfect love for people. And even thanks to the law and commandments that He Himself gives regarding love, it is impossible for us to love God, for from the law comes fear, not love. For until man receives the Spirit of revelation and his soul unites in his movements with that wisdom that is above the world, and until man knows the greatness of God from his own experience, it is impossible for him to approach this glorious taste of love. He who has not drunk wine will not become drunk from stories about wine; and whoever has not himself been honored in his soul with knowledge of the greatness of God will not be able to become intoxicated with love for Him.
Venerable Isaac the Syrian (VII century).
Without recognizing yourself as worthy of sorrow for your fall, you cannot know the Savior. From surrendering oneself to the will of God, the spiritual power of faith and spiritual consolation appear in a person’s heart. A sorrowless life is a sign of God’s displeasure towards man. One should not envy those who live without sorrow, for the end of their sorrowlessness is deplorable.
Venerable Nikon of Optina (1888-1931).
Through the Holy Spirit the Lord and all heavenly things are known, but without the Holy Spirit man is a sinful earth.
Venerable Silouan of Athos (1866-1938).
When a person feels in his heart that his soul is leprous with sin, all in ulcers, that he is powerless to heal his soul, just as a leper is powerless to heal himself, when death and ordeal become close to his eyes - then there is only one hope, one refuge - our Savior Lord Jesus Christ! Until this time, He was far from us, or rather, we were far from Him, and now He is the only Savior who came from heaven to save us, who took our sins upon Himself in our place, suffered the consequences of our sins, and covered our iniquities with His love; who promised to forgive everything for faith in Him and for repentance, to cleanse our soul and body, to unite repentant sinners with Himself in the Sacrament of Communion here on earth, as a guarantee of eternal union in the future life, to adopt us as sons of His Father and through this make us participants in the eternal Divine glory and bliss. This is what Christianity is all about! This is the love of God, the mercy of God for the fallen human race.
Hegumen Nikon (Vorobiev) (1894-1963).
The path of all knowledge is the direct revelation of being itself to the “knower,” or more precisely, to the perceiving subject. And this same path can only be applied in religious “knowledge”: God, His truths are revealed by Himself... So reason led me to faith: but he dismissed himself as an untenable teacher here...
Metropolitan Veniamin (Fedchenkov) (1880-1961).
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We must go to God, but sometimes He comes to meet us halfway
Let's turn to the history of religion. Abraham lived in Mesopotamia, to whom the Lord once said: “Get out of this country!” - that is, I addressed him directly. It follows from this that there is another way to be convinced of the existence of God: revelation. One day a person has to realize that acting with reason can be a mistake. It is necessary to include irrational ways of knowing. In particular, to take on faith the revelation that God Himself brought to us, because we cannot understand the essence of the Divine, we are limited. In this case, we should humble ourselves and understand that we can only learn about God what He has revealed to us. We would never have known of His existence if He did not want it.
We can approach the process of knowing God as a scientific subject - there is such a science as theology, which is studied in the theological faculties of educational institutions - and as an irrational revelation that came down from above. If revelation does not happen, we can follow the first path. To do this, we will rely on spiritual authorities - people who have had experience communicating with God - and on the Holy Scriptures, which talk about Him. On this path we also need patience, will, time, thirst for knowledge and good teachers who will help us ask questions and formulate the right conclusions. I note that we need to follow this path with a positive attitude, that is, we cannot doubt the correctness of the Creator’s actions, His love for His creation and the good final goal of humanity’s existence on earth. We must immediately accept the postulate that God is love. If we allow doubt as to why everything is this way or that way, we can become very seriously confused, as many philosophers have become confused.
All steps must be taken with love for the One to whom you are going, because you are going to the source of love, its root cause, to the One who loves you more than anyone in the world. You are going to the Person, thanks to Whose love we exist. On this path, we admire nature, the structure of the world, wonderful human qualities - sacrifice, love, mutual understanding, honesty, mercy, compassion - and the further we go, the more convinced we are of His existence.
How to get closer to God.
It is impossible to think about anything without having a clear idea about it. The Supreme is the Supreme Being who has many energies. One of the types of His energies is a special type of energy that permeates everything that exists. This type of energy is the basis of gravitational waves, thanks to which objects and various objects are held on Earth. The planets are in their orbits. Thanks to gravity, water moves downstream in rivers. Thanks to gravitational energy, water evaporates and moves through the air, causing precipitation to fall.
This type of energy from the Vedic scriptures is known as "Brahman" (this word has several meanings). “Brahman” is the cause of gravitational waves and is also the basis of intermolecular bonds. Thanks to these connections, objects can have a certain shape. “Brahman” is the basis of the bonds of elementary particles that make up atoms. Thanks to this type of energy, bonds are formed between neutrons and protons. As a result, atoms have a nucleus. Thanks to these bonds, electrons rotate around the nuclei, thereby forming an atomic structure.
As we can see, this type of divine energy that permeates absolutely everything – “Brahman” – is the root cause of all the connections that are formed, that is, everything that we see! Without this type of energy, the reality around us (and ourselves) would be a kind of homogeneous energetic “jelly”.
The essence of fulfilling this point of the process for knowing God is to look at any material object or object and realize that the root cause of this object is the all-pervading aspect of the Supreme - “Brahman”. The Almighty is the source of this type of energy. It is when looking at any object that one must keep in mind the fact that the reason for its appearance is “Brahman” - the all-pervading energy, the source of which is the Almighty. That is, to see in everything the manifestation of the energy of the Almighty.
Why was Steve Jobs an atheist?
It seems to me that many of the best minds of humanity, even those who position themselves as atheists, were not like that. They knew that God existed, but they did not want to obey Him. They wanted to communicate with Him on equal terms, but this is impossible. They are often extremely proud, and the Lord opposes the proud.
Moreover, we do not know whether those who considered themselves such actually died as atheists. I remember the incident described by Saint Paisius the Svyatogorets. A father came to him, whose son was an unbeliever and committed suicide - he jumped out of the window. The elder said: “While he was flying down, he could change his mind and repent.” The Lord is merciful, He accepts everyone’s repentance if it is sincere.
Perhaps the tragedy of these people is in their environment, which did not give them the opportunity to express what was burning in their souls. Maybe not even express it, but figure out what it was - and it was faith.
At the end of our conversation, I was reminded of a scene from the movie “Sorcerers,” when one of the characters tells how he manages to pass through walls: “I set a goal for myself and see no obstacles!” If a person wants to be convinced of the existence of God, he needs to follow the same path: set a goal - to understand the root cause of everything that happens in the world - and go towards it. There is no need to be afraid of difficulties. You need to learn, ask difficult questions - and he will definitely get answers to them. The Lord will help him in this and send him priceless pearls of faith. I advise you not to be afraid of this path, it is wonderful, because we have the opportunity to turn to the Creator of all things. I think that a person who seeks God will always be happy and joyful, because one day it will be revealed to him that “the earth is the Lord’s and what fills it, the universe and everything that lives in it, for He founded it on the seas and established it on the rivers” (Ps. 23:1-2).
Archpriest Vladimir Shutov
“Father, what color skirt would you bless me to buy?”
– Why do believers sometimes like to transfer responsibility for their lives to the priest? Does this come from great trust in the priest or, on the contrary, from fear of responsibility?
- Why a priest? The priest has authority; according to his rank, he is supposed to answer such questions.
- Yeah, and then the priest suffers, telling the young girl what color skirt to buy her.
– Sometimes such questions arise due to inexperience; people want them to have a kind of spiritual father who will guide them. And the priests themselves sometimes support such sentiments; there is a term for young age, when the clergy, out of inexperience or even out of spite, out of vanity, begin to play the role of a spirit-bearing elder and force parishioners to act according to their orders. But most often, I think, such behavior occurs due to inexperience: people are offered such conditions, and they accept them at face value. Sometimes it even becomes a habit.
– How do you deal with such “novices”?
– Many times I have come across a situation where people ask a question to which they have had an answer for a long time, and they are more than confident that I will tell them the same thing.
- Why do they need this?
– This means that there is some kind of uncertainty in them, they are looking for confirmation of their actions. I already know this trick behind certain people and usually say: “Well, you yourself know how to do it, why ask?” and I receive in response: “Still, I would like to hear from you, father.”
Quantum transition
We live in a three-dimensional world, in a world of space and time, so we strive to specifically understand and imagine where God is? If we say that God is everywhere, then this is not clear to us; we need a specific place. But Jesus said that “false Christs and false prophets will arise” and will talk about a carnal messiah, “Here is Christ here” or “Behold, he is there.” And Jesus warned, “Believe not, for behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” What did Jesus mean? What is the Kingdom of God? This is the place where He dwells, His Mind, His Spirit, His consciousness.
Jesus meant that God, the Universal Mind, is completely within us. This is true for every son or daughter of God. And it will not be blasphemy for us to think that we are truly created in the image and likeness of God.
The I AM Presence diagram represents a picture of the Kingdom of God within us. Your beloved Christ Self is the image of the invisible God. He was born before us, this is our real Self. He is the Mediator between our soul (lower figure) and the immortal Spirit I AM (upper figure). The beloved Christ Self is depicted as a middle figure. It stands as if between heaven and earth, like an open door to the Mighty I AM Presence. Let's see how we look on subtle planes.
The top figure is our individual God Presence. And with its Light Manifestation, the Holy Christ Self, it is our true Essence. This is our electronic body of Light - the true image of God. Every person has it. It is an exact copy of the Electronic Presence of God at the center of the Universe, in the Great Central Sun, which is the core of the cosmos, from which all star systems and physical universes emanate. Everything in our physical, material universe emanates from this center of Light, which is the mediator between Spirit and Matter. Here the Cosmic Christ consciousness of all life, that is, the perfect image, the divine model of all creation, is focused. Our Holy Christ Self also contains the perfect image of our soul and our Divine plan.
Once again, I would like to remind you that the material presented in the section “The Divinity of Man” is presented in detail in the book “The Lost Teachings of Jesus” by Mark L. Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Moscow. 2008
Mark L. Prophet, Elizabeth Claire Prophet "The Lost Teachings of Jesus."
The ray of light over the Divine I AM Presence is an extension of our crystalline (silver) string connecting our heart through the Holy Christ Self and I AM Presence to the heart of the Cosmic Christ Self in the Great Central Sun, and to the Sun beyond the sun or the One God.
Now, I think it’s clear why Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is within us. Everyone who is of God has an individualized piece of God—our Mighty I AM Presence. God can be divided endlessly, and each of His particles has all the properties inherent in Him, just as a drop of water has the properties of water in the ocean. You see, you really are a piece of God on the inner planes (within us). It is my hope that knowing and understanding the blueprint of our Divine I AM Presence will truly bring you even closer to God. We will continue to take a closer look at this scheme.
So, we know and understand that we have, individualized for us, a piece of God, the Divine Presence. Figuratively speaking, we can say that it always hovers above us, above our physical body, in the air. Many children see the Presence and think it is a beautiful angel. John the Theologian in Revelations described “a mighty angel descending from heaven... clothed with a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, and his face like the sun.” We see that this is a description of our powerful I AM Presence. Moses also called the Presence of God the “Angel of the Lord.” And Mark the Prophet says that the patriarchs and prophets took for the angel of the Lord the Lord himself, who personified himself through the I AM Presence or through the Archangels.
Our I AM Presence is an individual and very personal manifestation of God for each of us. God is Spirit, Great Intelligence, living Truth, but for the sake of close verbal communication with man, He takes the form of a man so that man recognizes his Creator. There is One God, Almighty, Omnipresent Spirit. He brings comfort to His daughters and sons wandering in the material universe, the great gift of His Presence, the Electronic Presence. God concentrates His Being in the Great Central Sun, but He can create an infinite number of His Light copies, focuses. And all the tricks will be similar no matter who they belong to. And the I AM Presence of Jesus is just like yours.
The prayer “Our Father...” expresses the recognition that God belongs to each of us, He is our Father, and just as a physical father belongs to each of his children, so God is the Heavenly Father for each of us. And each of us has the opportunity to talk with Him individually, send Him our love and ask for help and consolation, isn’t this the Great Gift of our Loving Heavenly Father! We must feel this, understand it and always thank our Heavenly Father for His Love for us and for His Care for us. It is our misfortune that we ourselves have turned away from it, and so we have been wandering through the material universe for millions of years in darkness, sorrow and deprivation. And God has always been with us, is and will be. He is waiting for our repentance, our conversion: “Behold I stand and knock.”
Wanderer
Elizabeth Prophet. How to Achieve the Power of Your Higher Self.
Return to yourself, truly realize the search for your god
People are in this world in order to return to themselves. When a person remembers his god and rises to him, then next time he may no longer be reincarnated on earth. And don't reincarnate at all. He himself becomes a god, uniting with his One. It's like sewing a person's hand back and she remembers that she belongs to this body and does not exist separately. Accordingly, the next reincarnation is a process of his good will. And he can already choose why, where, where, in what world, under what circumstances he should realize himself. The main thing to understand is why.
And if a person lived “as it turns out” and died “as it turns out,” then, accordingly, his entire future life will also be “as it turns out” and “as it turns out.” That is, he will be reincarnated in the family of the first people he comes across, and it is not a fact that they will suit him both in level and caste. They may coincide more or less in vibrations, but what kind of people they will be, what race, nation, what social class they will be is not known.
Every person before Christianity was united with his god, he knew him. This connection was unbreakable, inextricable. But everything ended with the arrival of this religion. When Christianity came, it was natural and at the time in which it should have been according to general laws. The connection between people and their ancestors-gods was broken among all peoples, among all pagans - not only among the Slavs. Establish a connection with power.
