Some of you may still doubt that the doctrine of the Trinity is practical. Therefore, I am going to let you speak with A. Craig Troxel. This is my final quote from his article titled, Communion with the Triune God.
"God is one God in three "persons." He is not three entities or forces. We need to take seriously God’s threefold personage, and learn to relate to him appropriately and practically with this in mind. We may be tempted to ask, “Is this really important?” Is this just a theological detail that makes no real practical difference?” Will this actually change the way I walk as a Christian or how I pray or how I think about God?” These are important questions. And the answer is that thinking about communion with our triune God is important, and that it can and should make a real difference in how we relate to God.
More specifically, it ought to make a profound and practical difference in our ability to enter into a closer walk with God. First of all, anything that is biblical should be practical, because the Word of God is useful for teaching us, rebuking us, correcting us, and training us in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16). If this teaching on communion with the triune God is faithful to Scripture, then it ought to help us to obey and to enjoy more fully the fruit of God’s command: “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (Jas. 4:8).
Secondly, we must be careful not to fall into error when we seek to relate to God. On the one hand, we must not focus too narrowly on one person of the Trinity at the expense of the others. One group of Christians–the “Jesus Only” or “Oneness” movement–so stresses Jesus, as the summation and apex of the revelation of God, that he is to be adored above the other members of the Trinity. Some liberal braches of the church ignore the Son of God and focus on the loving Father of humankind. And some churches so severely understate the divinity and personality of the Holy Spirit that he ends up being characterized as nothing more than a force. These are three examples of anti-Trinitarian thought or practice. Yet there are orthodox Christians who avoid God the Gather out of fear, or bypass the mediating role of Christ in prayer, or avoid speaking of the Holy Spirit for fear of sounding like a charismatic. Christians can so neglect the so neglect the distinct members of the Trinity that they become Unitarians in practice, even though such an idea would utterly repulse them in principle.
On the other hand, we must not think about our communion with God too abstractly or broadly. It is possible to consider our communion with God so theoretically, so abstracted from life, that it becomes merely an exercise in mystical contemplation. Our practice should conform to our preaching, and our life must reflect our faith in the triune God.
Perhaps it is helpful to think practically of communion with God in terms of how we as parents relate to our children. My children look to my wife and me as their parents, but they often look to her specifically as their mother or to me specifically as their father. In most matters, my wife and I present a “unified front.” But there are those moments when my children need their mother or their father for what we uniquely represent, or for what we individually can give by way of affection, instruction, or emotional support, or for how we in particular can listen and talk to them. Summer camps exist for these special relationships, recognizing what every parent knows: some conversations are more ideally suited to the father as a father or to the mother as a mother.
The same is true for our relationship with God. We relate to the living and true God, who is one and who is also in three persons. We are right to look uniquely to the Gather as his children in some matters, even as we look particularly to Christ for sympathy as the one who partook of our nature, and just as we look to the Spirit especially as the agent of comfort.
Understanding our relationship to God in this manner should bear the fruit of a closer walk with God. It should be a relationship in which we share in the sufferings and risks of knowing Christ. It should be a communion in which we grew in our desire for God. A friendship that is marked by mutual listening and speaking, loving and longing, and striving and drawing closer together. A fellowship that is typified by deepening solidarity–our sanding for Christ and his standing with us. A walk that know the sorrows, joys, and rewards of an intimate bond with God and proves faithful and strong enough to endure every trial, battle, or illness. A bond of such goodness that it endures every challenge and overcomes every evil, against all human hope. A communion in which we enjoy “the unbreakable ties of friendship and sacrifice,” inseparably joined to God in love for all eternity."
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