Analysis of the Short Story Janus

Having a personal relationship with God begins the moment we realize our need for him, admit we are sinners, and in faith we receive Jesus Christ as our savior. Our relationship to God is like the loving relationship between a child and parent. Like children, some of us return God’s abundant mercy and some reject him. Nevertheless, he sheds his consecrated blessings upon us. God’s gifts of benevolence and redemption are offered to all without a price; even to those who chose the path of malign. Having a personal relationship with God means we should include him in our daily lives. Love is the greatest gift that the almighty gives us. St. Paul declares that love in Christ is the greatest offering of all spiritual gifts. Most Christians believe that the greatest commandment is “thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength”: in addition to the second, “thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”. Faith is worthless without compassion. The first concept is on faith.

The Christian faith is the experience of living in a dynamic and new personal relationship with God through the transforming and indwelling power of Jesus in your body and life. The key to this new experience of living, and its essential factor, is trusting God to make you into a new person by allowing him to place the Spirit on behalf of Jesus, his Son, into your mind and body where Jesus can do their work to give you a new life. Faith operates when we worship God and have faith in him. By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going (Heb. 11:8). By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise (Heb. 11:9).

The greatest lesson I learned from this class is to live by faith. God honors faith and God is faithful. The second concept is hope. Hope is a firm assurance regarding things that are unclear and unknown (Rom 8:24-25), without hope life loses its meaning and in death there is no meaning. Christian hope is rooted in faith in the divine salvation in Christ. The third concept is Love. Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, not self-seeking, not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Love does not force himself on anyone. Love shows kindness to all. Love is impartial. Love is an attribute of God. It is a core aspect God’s character, His person.