God is Everywhere!

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Nelka

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Could you help me with something please?

I was talking to other Christians when they said they do not go to church, they do not need to as God is everywhere.

I do not understand why people say this, surely they visit their family to spend time with them and not just text and email them.

Sometimes I get tongue-tied or I am not direct enough in my answers.

How would you answer this?

Thanks.
 
They do not have a relationship with God, for God has not given them the gift of faith.

See this as their poverty.

We don’t go to Church because it’s an obligation, but because we love God, because he is God.

Jim
 
So much I’d like to say, but don’t have the words for. But it’s true, without a church, you aren’t a Christian. Yes, God is everywhere. But He expects you to gather with other believers for many reasons. Like, hearing the word preached and finding help and support from other believers. And giving that same support to others as we are all called to do.
 
God may be everywhere but Church is a faith community, an asembly of people who pray together , support each other and enjot fellowship, Koinonia,
 
That’s like saying that they’re an American without being a US citizen. In order to be a Christian, a member of the Kingdom of God, you must a member of the kingdom of God, aka the Church.
 
God is indeed everywhere, however the gift of the Blessed Sacrament is on an entirely different level of divine intimacy from His general omnipresence. In the Sacrament he gives us Himself, whereas through everything else in creation we have merely a mediated access to God with the object in question and the infinite gulf between the created and the uncreated acting as an intervening barrier. In the Blessed Sacrament, God is present within us without intermediary.

Who can read the following words of the mystic Johannes Tauler and still fail to understand that to exist without this sacrament is to experience the greatest deprivation possible?
"…How can reason possibly grasp that immensity beyond all being where the precious food of the Eucharist is, in some marvellous way, made one with us, drawing us wholly to itself and changing us into itself? It is a union more intimate than any that the human mind can conceive, totally unlike any other change, a union more compatible than a tiny drop of water losing itself in the wine-vat and becoming one with the wine, or that of the rays of the sun made one with the sun’s splendour; or the soul with the body, the two together making one person, one being. In this union the soul is lifted above the infirmity of its natural state, its own insufficiency, and there it is purified, transfigured and raised above its own powers, its human operations, its very self. Both being and activities are penetrated through and through by God, formed and transformed in a divine manner, the soul’s new birth is accomplished in truth, and the spirit, losing all its native incompatibility, flows into divine union.
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It is something like fire working on wood; the heat draws out all the moisture, the greenness and the heaviness. It grows warm, begins to glow, becomes more like the fire itself. As the wood slowly takes on the likeness of fire, the dissimilarity between the two grows less until finally, in a rapid movement, the fire takes from the wood its own substance; the wood becomes fire and loses at the same time its separateness and inequality, since it has become fire. No longer merely like fire, it has become one substance with the fire. Likeness is lost in union.
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In the same way this food of love draws the soul above distinction or difference, beyond resemblance to divine unity. This is what happens to the transfigured spirit. When the divine heat of love has drawn out all the moisture, heaviness, unfitness, then this holy food plunges such a one into the life of God. As Our Lord himself said to St Augustine, “I am the food of the strong: believe and feast on me. You will not change me into yourself; rather you will be changed into me.”…"
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***- Johannes Tauler (c.1300-1361), Catholic mystic & Dominican priest ***
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This gift is offered freely.
 
And again from another mystic:
“…I saw that Jesus united with his bride in the closest union, laid his head upon the head of his bride, his eyes on hers, his mouth, his hands, his feet, all his limbs on hers, so that the bride became one with him and wanted all that the bridegroom wanted, saw everything that the bridegroom saw, tasted everything that the bridegroom tasted. And God wants nothing else than that the soul should unite herself to him in this manner and that he should be entirely united with her…The soul, when its eyes are upon Jesus’ eyes, sees itself in God and God in all things. After the most holy communion I contemplated the great union of the soul with God through the sacrament, and in an instant I saw myself wholly united with God, and outside all bodily feeling, so that I would have felt nothing if I had been thrown into a fiery furnace. I did not know whether I was dead or alive, in the body or in the soul, on earth or in heaven; I saw only the whole glorious God in himself, loving himself purely, knowing himself infinitely, embracing all created things in pure infinite love, a oneness in three, an undivided Trinity, a God of boundless love, all-exalted in goodness, incomprehensible and unfathomable; so that I was with him and found nothing more of myself; only this I saw, that I am in God; but I did not see myself, only God alone…”
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***- Saint Maria Magdalena de Pazzi (1566 – 1607), Italian Carmelite mystic ***
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This is expressed in a typically Protestant way, but is completely theologically sound. Unless one believes in the transubstantial-type of Real Presence in the Eucharist where the bread and wine become Christ in body, blood, soul, and divinity, God is not present in any one place in creation than in any other. (And the conclusion that is possible to reach from such a view of the Eucharist, that God is more present in the tabernacle, than he is, in, say, the transept, or in the server room mangles and makes nonsense of a primary attribute of God – omnipresence. There is a much larger set of questions to deal with when believing God is “more present” in one place than in another – it is philosophical and theological nonsense.) The Gnesio-Lutherans and Phillippists had a controversy called “Ubiquitarian” touching on this.

As the Lord said, “I will not dwell in a house built of hands”.
 
Khalid said:
This is expressed in a typically Protestant way, but is completely theologically sound. Unless one believes in the transubstantial-type of Real Presence in the Eucharist where the bread and wine become Christ in body, blood, soul, and divinity, God is not present in any one place in creation than in any other. (And the conclusion that is possible to reach from such a view of the Eucharist, that God is more present in the tabernacle, than he is, in, say, the transept, or in the server room mangles and makes nonsense of a primary attribute of God – omnipresence. There is a much larger set of questions to deal with when believing God is “more present” in one place than in another – it is philosophical and theological nonsense.) The Gnesio-Lutherans and Phillippists had a controversy called “Ubiquitarian” touching on this.

As the Lord said, “I will not dwell in a house built of hands”.
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So God is just as present to us in a rock as He is in person of Jesus Christ? Why then do we not worship rocks, trees and the sea if the “fullness of Deity” in Christ is just as present in them as in His sacred body?

God is not present in a tree or rock, the way He is present in Himself. In the Eucharist, Jesus is present in His complete substance and Divine Nature.

If God were present in a tree or rock to the same extent as He was in the incarnation - with His essence and divinity - then there would be no need for the incarnation and indeed we would live in a pantheistic universe. You might as well worship me in that case :rolleyes:
 
Nelka said:
Could you help me with something please?

I was talking to other Christians when they said they do not go to church, they do not need to as God is everywhere.

I do not understand why people say this, surely they visit their family to spend time with them and not just text and email them.

Sometimes I get tongue-tied or I am not direct enough in my answers.

How would you answer this?

Thanks.
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Protestants, such as myself, tend to focus more on the idea of the omnipresence of God, and the special presence of the Holy Spirit within us (we are a temple of God, since He indwells believers). However, we are told specifically in scripture that we should not forsake gathering together. The congregation as the Body of Christ is much better represented where two or more are gathered in His name. There is usually more emphasis on the people as the church or ekklesia than an actual building or gathering place in many protestant circles. There are specific reasons why we are supposed to gather with other believers, and those can be gleaned throughout scripture.
 
Nelka said:
Could you help me with something please?

I was talking to other Christians when they said they do not go to church, they do not need to as God is everywhere.

I do not understand why people say this, surely they visit their family to spend time with them and not just text and email them.

Sometimes I get tongue-tied or I am not direct enough in my answers.

How would you answer this?

Thanks.
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God IS everywhere and in every time. It is good your friends recognize this.
Do they know who they are? They live human lives in time and space.

We are not everywhere, we can only be in one place at one time. .
We don’t know God very well.
Can’t see him, hear him, walk down the street with him.
How do we experience God?
Through revelation. Scripture, Tradition, teaching of the Church, and…
OTHER PEOPLE.

God became a man so that we might have fellowship with him, with others. He formed a Church so that we might do that… to love him, and one another, to be reconciled to one another. Through him, with him, and in him.

Long story short…our acts of worship are not solitary, selfish endeavors. We are not meant to love God in a vacuum without others. We are meant to love God with others, in union with them.
“Communion”.

So while God transcends time and space and can be everywhere, we do not, transcend time and space and cannot experience God any which way we would like. We are called to live specific human lives, with others.
 
Yes, God is everywhere, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t worship him at least once a week. That’s a cop-out for people to justify their beliefs.:highprayer:
 
God is everywhere and in everything by his power. God first made everything that exits to exist, that is, he gave it existence. And then he continues to hold everything that he made to exist in existence itself. For if he withdrew his power to uphold its existence, then it would fall into non-existence. So God is everywhere by his power to sustain everything in creation at all times.

There is another existence of God, and that is his divine grace which is given at baptism. The peron’s soul is flooded with divine life of God making that person an adopted son/daughter of God.
They really are sons of God thru this divine supernatural power of grace. This makes it possible for God to live supernaturally in the baptised soul.

There is another existence of God and that is his real divine presence existing in the Eucharist, where Jesus at the last supper said, “This is my body and this is my blood.” That too is an existence of God thru the only begotten son of the Father, where the Son, Jesus, exists in body and soul and divinity. This takes place at every Mass.

And then there is the existence of God himself from all eternity.

As we can see, we have a seperate existence from God and we are not just extenions of God as pantheism would have us believe.
 
oh, so in your situation, you need a short reply to your friends…

oh those doubters of God-who make excuses…do they have many excuses?

so, we need mercy…like those beams of love from the divine mercy painting…perhaps, these beam from you -and they see it-and you did not realize it…/ in a social situaiton,
mayby…an ultimate truth might pursuade, for instance, yes-God is in the forrest-here i visit; i hear him in silence of the woods…and His forgiveness of the world is great.i often ask for His mercy…
 
Nelka said:
Could you help me with something please?

I was talking to other Christians when they said they do not go to church, they do not need to as God is everywhere.

I do not understand why people say this, surely they visit their family to spend time with them and not just text and email them.

Sometimes I get tongue-tied or I am not direct enough in my answers.

How would you answer this?

Thanks.
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I think that these Protestants have reached a valid conclusion, given the fact they have no Tabernacle, and no Real Presence of Him, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, in their churches.

God is indeed everywhere–in the beautiful sunset, in the unfolding of a flower, and if He is present everywhere but NOT physically present in their churches, if I were a Protestant this is what I would argue as well: why do I need to go to church to be with Him when He is not any more present there than He is when I pray with 3 of my friends on the beach?
 
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