Intimate things about a ‘Facebooking’ God

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Mark 1:9-11 (NIV)

9 At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

Facebook has changed our lives forever. Thanks–but no thanks?–to Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, Time Magazine’s 2010 Person of the Year.

People have things to say about Facebook. Here’s one from Facebook user Marketta Phillips: “I love and hate facebook because it has reconnected me with people, connected me to people I would probably not have met as easily and has kept me connected to people (even after you have blocked them) that I have tried to get rid of.”

Whatever our feelings are toward Facebook, life is no longer the same for those of us who use it. We voluntarily give up our privacy when we willingly share some intimate things with Facebook friends whose friends, who can be total strangers, may be able to see them, too!  But despite the risks of using Facebook, over 800 million active users have returned to the site in the last 30 days!

Personally, I like using Facebook. Of course there are times when I wish some girl friends wouldn’t always post pictures of them  that make them look like they are candidating to become models for a magazine for men, or flaunt to the world what they’ve bought during their last shopping spree. But overall, I like Facebook and Facebooking.

Through Facebook I’ve made some good friends with whom I can share stuff: fun, prayer concerns, ideas, etc. Some of these friends I’ve never met before, nevertheless, to me, they are good friends. The other day I made this comment on the status of one such friend who was celebrating his birthday: “Strange it may be but some of my good friends I haven’t met in person yet I know them better than some of my neighbors!”

I think it’s a wonderful thing that a friendship can grow even between people who have not seen each other face to face. And the good news is that, in our relationship with God, the same thing can happen. We haven’t really seen God or Jesus, that is, literally or face to face. But thanks be to a ‘Facebooking’ God!–we can know some of the intimate things about our heavenly Father and his Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Here’s what we find on God’s “Facebook status” today: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” God the Father willingly shares with us and to all the world his intimate relationship with the Son. God introduces his Son to us and and invites us to partake in the divine love by “adding” Jesus as friend so that we may know  more about him, and by knowing him we’ll know  more about our loving God! And when we who are friends of Jesus become friends as well, then that divine love that takes place in the Godhead can become part of our experience if we let the love of God be the venue and occasion for our relationship.

Yes, a heavenly experience of a loving relationship with God and with with one another can be had even while we live in this fallen world! But first, we have to add Jesus as friend.

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*http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?factsheet

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