You've asked about the Christian understanding of God and about my personal view of Him, and this gives me an opportunity to explain both to you, which will also indirectly enlarge upon what you know about me as a person. I couldn't be more delighted that you asked, because God is a central figure in my life, and I would love for you to know Him the way I do.
Most Christians would agree that God is love, and He is power. He sent Jesus to become incarnate-that means "to inhabit a body"-because He loved us so much that He wanted "God with us," to touch us with His love and draw us closer to Himself.[1] "God with us" is, in fact, what one of Jesus' names-Immanuel-means.[2] I've met people who think that God exists but doesn't care what happens to mankind. They base their opinion on the fact that bad things happen to people, and an all-powerful God would prevent those bad things if He loved His people. So they assume that God feels nothing for man and merely exerts His power for some other purpose than to benefit man. This is not the Christian view of God. There's a type of theology called "process theology" that explains that "To be an actual entity, God cannot only act on the world. God must also be acted on."[3] Therefore everything that people "say or think or feel makes a difference to God."[4] Not only that, "what human beings do to other human beings...they do also to God."[5] That's why Jesus talked about our taking in strangers, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick or imprisoned He said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."[6]
God's power is magnificent. Just a look through the Bible shows amazing accounts of it, like when He parted the Red Sea to allow the Israelites to walk across it on dry ground and then closed it behind them to drown their enemies. Even more exciting is the fact that His Word is full of His power and ...