Who is there?

We may relate to multiple people every day. Certainly if we live or work in an urban hub we
rub shoulders with scores of other people. Yet, we can find that we are aware of the empty
space beyond the people. Is there really someone there?

The writer calls this personal relational being who is “more than” and “other”, God. When we
use the word “God” we have some sort of supremacy, power and difference in mind, but
generally we don’t really think much about who or what we think God is. This letter will
introduce us to what many people have discovered God to be like.
From the first it is clear that God and Jesus are intimately connected in some way. The
things God offers us, the arenas of life that he opens up to us, the relationship he invites us
to … all these are given “in Jesus” or “through Jesus”. If we follow this spiritual way, it is
inescapably the way of God-in-Jesus.
The exciting thing is the first thing that characterises God is that he has “blessed us”. This is
what we can receive from God. Our writer will unpack what this means, but before we
understand the word “blessed” we know it means something good.