What does it mean to believe?

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, our worthy listeners!

Today in our program we begin a new cycle of reflection. The next few thoughts will be about faith.

When I think about what faith is, I would not like to start talking about it as certain truths or as belonging to a denomination. I would first like to consider the importance of faith; what happens to a person who believes; what is faith as a certain act that has profound consequences.

To believe is to open oneself to God, who reveals Himself to man

To believe, to be a believer is the main feature of a Christian. To believe is to open oneself to God, who reveals Himself to man and gives Himself to him. Thus, to believe means to enter into personal communication, a personal relationship with God.

Here it is very important to realize that the God we believe in is not something but Someone. The God we believe in is the Person. We sometimes say that our God is alive, and therefore He is a living being, the Person who reveals Himself to us, and establishes a relationship and communication with us. That is why we say that to believe means to answer. To believe means to receive. To believe means to accept.

Everyone is a religious being who seeks God

Everyone, whether they realize it or not, is a religious being. We were so created by our Creator that, whether we like it or not, we seek the meaning of our own lives. Man, as a religious being, bears the seal of eternal life. God approaches man, responding to his search. Therefore, each of us, although in a different way, seeks God, needs Him. Each person prepares in some way for the encounter with the living God who is revealed to him.

Faith is not just a feeling

We often talk about religious feelings, about the feelings of believers. But faith is man's response to God not only with feelings. Man also responds with all his being, his mind, and his will.

God is not dumb or inactive

How does God speak to us? How does He approach us? Often we may not recognize that God is near. How can you truly feel God's presence? In other words, how does God speak to me? Obviously, the Lord acts as a living being, as a living God, as a person. The God we believe in is not dumb or inactive. He speaks, has a word that addresses each of us, and acts.

You can know God by His works

First of all, we can know the Lord God by His works. We can know the Lord God by contemplating the world He has created, the reflection of God's majesty in the various perfections of His creation. We can experience God's beauty by contemplating the beauty of this world. We can feel God's wisdom in the harmony and order of this world. The Lord God also speaks to us through history, through the circumstances in which He calls us. The Lord God is the God of history, which He makes as one of the elements of man's accompaniment in this life.

But the Lord God fully revealed Himself to man when the Son of God, the Word of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, became man Himself by the power and action of the Holy Spirit. In Jesus Christ, God began to speak to man in human language. God dwelt in the human body among people. God approached man in such a way that he could see, hear, touch, and live with Him. The Lord God began to speak to man in his human language and to live human life.

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Sometimes we do not know the God we believe in. Therefore, our reflections (the catechesis – ed.) are aimed at acquainting us a little closer with the Lord God, in whom we believe, in whom we live, in whom, according to the Apostle Paul, we move and exist. May the feeling of God's presence, the ability to reveal oneself to Him be the meaning of the life of every believer! Amen.

The UGCC Department for Information