human being
Lamenting the Very Good
By Linda Rex
June 7, 2020, HOLY TRINITY—Lately it seems as though this has been a long, drawn-out season of lament. There have been repeated reasons to feel and express sorrow, to regret, to mourn over the loss of lives to mass shootings, natural disasters, and the most recent pandemic.
The exact figures of the lives lost just to COVID-19 are unknown, but according to the World Health Organization website on May 28th, there were 357,736 deaths reported worldwide. Where were these 357,736 people last year at this time? What were their lives like? How many lives did each one touch? What about their families and friends, work colleagues, and teachers? If we do not make the effort to lament, to grieve the loss of each of these people, then we lose our ability to value the worth of each human being we meet.
Our cellphones and other devices make it possible now to interact with a large number of people immediately, creating a response by what we post on social media or on websites. We can affect thousands and even millions of people simply by what we say or do, what pictures we take, and what movies we create. In the midst of this freedom of expression, we find ourselves exposed not just to the best of humanity, but also to the dredges.
Most recently a wave of protest erupted over a film posted which showed the unlawful use of power and authority by police against someone of color. The violent response of many to this event echoes the reality that here in the U.S. we still have not learned the true value of a human being. The fact that we still create artificial divisions between us using race, ethnicity, gender, income, intelligence—the list goes on—shows we still do not know our story and our identity as humans.
It is important that we lament our failure to love our fellowman. We fail so often to love our fellowman simply by refusing to give him or her the status of fellowman. By refusing to treat every other human being as an equal, we actually diminish our own dignity as human beings. We make ourselves less than what we were created to be—image-bearers of God himself, the One who did not think it beneath himself to come to earth and take on our human flesh, becoming what we are to bring us into union and communion with himself.
The COVID-19 crisis has exposed even more of our inhumanity, simply by putting leaders and caregivers in the position of having to decide who gets treatment and who does not, who is protected and who is not. It seems that, in reality, the decision being made is, who is expendable? Is it true that someone who has lived a long good life does not have the same value as someone who is just starting out? How is it than we can place a value on a human being based simply on their age or productivity?
Do you see the issues here? We are forced into a corner where we must make these impossible decisions, but at some point we have got to admit that we have made someone less than human in the process of trying to decide who lives and who dies. As human beings, we really have no excuse, for God has been trying to tell us for millennia that we are made by God’s love, to love him and one another. We must pause and lament our failure to love God and one another—we have failed to be the image-bearers of the Triune God we were meant to be.
In my book, Making Room, I talk about how we as human beings find our identity in the God who is Father, Son, and Spirit. This God was revealed by Jesus Christ to be three Persons in one Being—each unique yet equal to the others while united in unbreakable communion. This communion in which they exist, this perichoretic love, is the overflowing abundant source of our existence as human beings. We are made to be image-bearers of this God.
This is the same God who, after creating the cosmos, the earth and everything in it, pronounced it all very good. Even though he knew that we had the capacity to turn away from his love and attempt to live apart from his abiding presence, he still pronounced us very good. He still sought conversation and fellowship with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. And even when they chose the knowledge of good and evil over real life in intimate relation with him, he covered it all with his love and grace as he covered them with animal skins.
In coming into our human flesh, the Word of God did not isolate himself from those who were less than him or who were powerless, but rather joined himself to them and gave them his presence and power. In Christ we have God restoring us to the very good which was ours in the very beginning. This above all things should teach us that to offer ourselves to those whom society deems less than or weaker than, giving them our strength, resources, and support, is to more accurately bear the image of the God who made us.
God is teaching me that one of the biggest obstacles that stands in the way of our offering ourselves to one another in this way is fear. Fear occurs when we do not know one another well—when we make assumptions based on past experience, hearsay, gossip, or someone else’s opinion and do not make the effort to get to know the person ourselves on a one-to-one basis. Our Scriptures say it is perfect love which casts out fear—that he who fears is not made perfect in love.
If God, in and through Christ and by the Spirit, can love each and every person on this earth enough to join us in our humanity, live the life we were meant to live, to die our death and rise again, and then come in the person of the Spirit to enable us to participate in the heavenly Triune fellowship, then I would say God has given us everything we need to begin to live in loving relationship with one another. The apostle Paul calls to us, “Strive for full restoration…be of one mind, live in peace.” We do this as the God of love and peace is in us and with us by the Spirit.
Let us lament our failures to love our brothers and sisters. Let’s turn away from ourselves and our stubborn willful independence and turn towards the One who offers us his grace and love, Jesus Christ. Receive from him the gift of life in union and communion with the God who made and sustains all things.
It is in this life with our Triune God, with Jesus as our Mediator between God and man, that we find the capacity and power to love and understand those whom we normally reject and fear. It is Christ in us by the Spirit who binds us together in oneness, enabling us to be likeminded and to live in peace with one another.
It is Jesus living his life in us who works to restore the image of God in each of us, bringing us to completeness, enabling us as human beings to properly reflect the image of the God who is three Persons in one Being. It is in the name of this Triune God—Father, Son, and Spirit—we are baptized, and it is at his table we take communion, gratefully receiving all he has done for us in Jesus. We live our lives from then on, showing those around us what it looks like to live in loving fellowship with God and our fellowman as image-bearers of the Trinity.
Abba, thank you for loving us in spite of our inability and unwillingness to live in loving relationship with one another. We are so dependent upon your grace and forgiveness for our prejudices, our hatred, our fear, our murder and abuse of those who you have given us as brothers and sisters. Lord, if you do not lift us up, renew and restore us, we have no hope—we trust in the finished work of Christ. Let your kingdom come, your will, Abba, be done here on earth, in every city, state, and nation, as it is in heaven, through Jesus our Lord and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.” 2 Corinthians 13:11 NIV
“God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. … By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.” Genesis 1:31a; 2:2 NASB
“And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’” Matthew 28:18–20 NASB
Walking Humbly
by Linda Rex
While I was still attending worship services up in Illinois many years ago, we decided one Sunday to change things up a bit during the worship service. We were a very small fellowship group and we gathered together to sing, and to pray and to hear God’s word together. But this particular Sunday we popped popcorn and watched a movie together.
The movie had its funny points and its deeply moving points. And the verse which continually jumped out at me was Micah’s prophetic word, “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (Micah 6:8 KJV).
It occurred to me this morning as I read that verse anew in my morning devotional time, we tend to see this verse as something we have to do as part of our walk as followers of Jesus Christ. It is a challenge for us as human beings to always do what is good, especially when doing good means different things to different people. Indeed, what is truly good?
And what does it mean to be just? Sometimes our efforts to be just turn out to be cruel and unjust in the end. And we’re not always sure of the best way to show mercy, because sometimes the most merciful thing we can do for people is make them face up to their irresponsibility and codependency. And walking humbly with God? That’s another story altogether. We tend to naturally be very arrogant as human beings—when do we ever truly acknowledge our dependency upon the God who created us and sustains us?
If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit this whole way of living life does not come naturally to us, even though it is what we were created for. God made everything in the beginning, including humanity, and declared our intrinsic being to be good. And yet we think, feel and act in ways which so often are not good. The critical thing for us to understand is God is the source of our goodness. In fact, it is his goodness which is necessary in this instance, since all our goodness falls short.
We do not execute justice as we ought, especially when we determine what is right or wrong based on personal preference, or prejudice, or cultural preconceptions. Too often the weighing in factors are money, power, and prestige rather than what is truly just in God’s sight. God is the One who sees all, even down to the dirty depths of the human heart—and he is the only one who executes true justice. For God is the only One who truly sets everything right in the end.
And so we come to walking humbly with our God. Even God’s chosen people in the Scriptures, the nations of Israel and Judah, did not walk humbly with God. Even though they knew the way to live and walk with God, and the need for them to be a light to the nations, they chose to go their own way. They stubbornly chose their own path, and so reaped the consequences of their choice.
But there was one person who knew the path to walk. He was the only one who lived out the truth of this verse. It took God coming to meet us in our brokenness for there to be a human being who could and would live out the truth of walking humbly with our God. This God/man, Jesus Christ, who was the divine Word in human flesh, is the One who did justly, who loved mercy and who walked humbly with his Father, the Lord of all. Jesus Christ did what none of us could or would do, and he offered himself voluntarily to stand in our place.
Jesus taught us the path to true humility. He set aside the privileges of divinity to join us in our humanity, willing to experience every part of our human existence, even to the point of the unjust indignity of being tortured and crucified. He did not seek his own path, but yielded completely to his Father’s will, and even yielded to the unjust demands of us as human beings in allowing himself to be mistreated and murdered.
In Philippians 2:5-8, the Apostle Paul describes the beauty of the humility of Christ in the midst of our humanity:
“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (NASB)
It’s hard to imagine some of the world leaders we have today being willing to do this very thing. Some executives in large companies would never consider doing what the Word did in setting aside his position and power for our sake as human beings, so we could be included in God’s life and love. Who in their right mind would do such a thing? Yet, we have this eyewitness account: Christ did it.
And this is where we find the resources to live in this way too. In the gift of the Spirit, Christ shares with you and with me, the heart of humility, justice and goodness which is his very own. He offers us his real humanity, the one we were meant to have from the beginning, and says to you and to me—believe. Believe this is true, this is yours, this is who you really are—and live as if it were true.
In our relationship with God in Christ by the Spirit, we find an understanding of what being truly just really means, and in time, we find ourselves being more and more just. As we study Jesus Christ, and get to know him personally in a deeper and deeper way, we find ourselves discerning more clearly it is not so much about what is good or evil according to our human understanding, but about what gives life, the true life which is ours in Jesus Christ. Doing what is good has to do with living in the reality of who we are in him, not in our carnal, broken humanity.
And in our relationship with our Abba in his Son by the Spirit, we find ourselves learning true humility—the path of walking humbly with our God which is only found in Jesus Christ, our Immanuel, who is God with us. Christ’s humility becomes ours. We come to recognize we cannot and do not walk humbly with God as we ought, so God came to walk with us and in us. God stoops down and lifts us up into relationship with himself in Jesus, and by his Spirit enables us to walk in relationship with him moment by moment. It is what God has done and does today and will do in the future which matters here—we only participate in Christ’s perfected work of humility.
So this is how we live out this verse. Christ in us by his Spirit does justly, loves mercy, and walks humbly with his God. Christ in us is for us, in us and with us all we need to live in a loving, perfected relationship with our eternal God. Immanuel, God with us, calls us to participate with him in his life and love, for he has shown us, in his life, death, resurrection and ascension, all which God requires of us. And so we live our lives in gratitude.
Thank you, Abba, for calling us into life with yourself, and for giving us your Son and your Spirit so we may live in you and with you forever. Dear Christ, be for us, as you truly are by your Spirit, the genuine justice, mercy and humility of our lives, so we may walk humbly before you. In your Name we pray. Amen.
“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8 NASB
A Crisis of Faith
by Linda Rex
Is it possible for a human to do what only God can do?
What a question! But what if a person does not believe there is a God and believes it’s all up to us as humans to save ourselves? What if we do have to rescue ourselves from this mess we’ve created and there is no help to be expected from any other place?
I suppose too, if a person did perhaps believe there was a God, but believed this God was indifferent or condemning, we would still be in a very difficult position. After all, it has been our choices as humans which have brought us to the place we are facing ecological disaster and economic, immigration, racial, cultural issues—you name it, we are facing it, and it’s due to our decision to do things the way we see fit.
But it is interesting how people have responded during this election season to the question of who should lead our country. It seems on the one hand many people were happy to give the candidates the benefit of the doubt, but at the same time their supporters are expecting them to solve all the issues which face the American people. But can any human being actually do that?
Others are adamant we are just getting what we deserve as Americans because of our decadence, hedonism and greed. So they are assuming God is executing his judgment on our nation because of our sinfulness. But is that really the way God works? What kind God would act like that?
I was reading an article this morning which explained all the changes the president-elect promised to make once he was elected. In the article, it explained how difficult it would be to do any of these things due to the checks and balances in our government, the entrenched bureaucracy and not to mention the immense baggage created by all the leaders before him. No matter which person would have been elected, he or she would have faced this same problem, and would have struggled to bring about lasting change.
The thing is, all any human leader can hope to do is to temporarily alter the physical circumstances of the people in the nation he or she is leading. Bringing about real change requires so much more than just electing a human being to an office in a human government. Giving someone the position, and I suppose even the power, to lead and govern others does not guarantee all of the problems people are facing will be solved.
What is missing from this whole discussion, I believe, is some true introspection about the human heart and mind. Caught in our own humanity, we are blind to the spiritual realities. The best way to bring about change in a nation like ours is to begin with an internal change within ourselves. We need to come to the place in which we realize we are powerless to change and heal what needs to be changed and healed. We need to acknowledge the reality we are broken humans who cannot properly and effectively govern ourselves, much less others.
As long as we seek to be self-sustaining and self-governing, we end up in the same place. Our best efforts to govern ourselves and to discipline our human flesh keep bringing us to the place we are dependent or co-dependent when we seek to be independent. This is because we are missing the point of the whole process which is to live interdependently with God and each other in a relationship of love and grace. We need to understand we are only who we are because there is One Who is above and beyond us and Who has included us in his life and love.
It’s not about creating more rules or getting a bigger police group to enforce those rules. It’s not about punishing people whose race, religion, culture, life choices and life styles differ from our assumptions of what is good and what is evil. It’s about an internal transformation which happened over 2000 years ago in spite of us—a heart transplant given to every human being. Will we live in the truth of that new heart which was given us—the true spiritual reality of our identity as children who are persons in the divine Persons?
The real question is how can we? And that is a really good question—because we cannot. We need to realize we are the humans here, not the God. We need our Messiah to come even now. We need rescued. We need saved. But how? If Jesus isn’t going to return tomorrow, how are we able to go forward into an uncertain and maybe even dangerous future?
See, the thing is, we live as though we and God are separate. We think and act as though Jesus is off somewhere and we need him to come here to fix things. But that is not the case. It is my personal testimony, and the testimony of many others, that God is present here and now in you and in me, in us and among us by his Holy Spirit. He is at work in every situation, and acutely aware of every fear, every bit of guilt and shame which plagues us. Jesus is present, real and near to us—speaking to us his words of hope, encouragement and guidance to our hearts and minds.
We see people interceding for the oppressed and the needy, providing for the hungry, and healing the sick—God is at work in this world. He doesn’t always work the way we think he should work—after all, his perspective is eternal not temporal. But he is busy tending the garden, pulling weeds, tying up vines and trimming off branches, and is working in and through human beings in the process.
Yes, there is a lot more work to be done—so let’s get in the dance and start dancing! As we respond in faith to God’s Word to us in Christ and the inner promptings of the Spirit, we will find our world and ourselves being healed and transformed. We will begin to have a vision of life beyond this life, being able to accept the reality this world is passing away and our true life is waiting for us beyond the grave.
It is our response to the leadership of the Spirit which is the issue here rather than our need to find the perfect president for our country. Are we willing to trust God to do what we as humans cannot and have not done to heal our land and to heal us as human beings? Perhaps we cannot—but that’s okay. Because it is not our faith which saves us, it is the faith of the Faithful One Who did save us, Who is working to save us right now, and Who will save us in the future. He will finish what he has begun in us—growing us up into the fullness of our Christlikeness, the image of God we were created to reflect, as we respond to him with humility and love in gratitude.
Lord, we acknowledge we cannot save ourselves, we cannot keep ourselves safe, we cannot govern ourselves as we ought. We hurt and disrespect, abuse and misuse, ourselves, our earth and each other. Forgive us, Lord, and grant we may live according to the truth of our being and begin to reflect your image as we ought, through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul! I will praise the Lord while I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. Do not trust in princes, in mortal man, in whom there is no salvation. His spirit departs, he returns to the earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. How blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, Who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them; Who keeps faith forever; Who executes justice for the oppressed; Who gives food to the hungry. the Lord sets the prisoners free. The Lord opens the eyes of the blind; the Lord raises up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous; the Lord protects the strangers; He supports the fatherless and the widow, but He thwarts the way of the wicked. The Lord will reign forever, Your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise the Lord!” Ps 146:1–10 NASB
Emotional Overload
by Linda Rex
Years ago it was hard for me to imagine seeing Jesus in a tender moment with his Father, so overwhelmed by emotion he begins weeping and crying. I’m not sure if back then I was imagining Jesus with a halo, or Jesus with a stern look on his face. I’m just not really sure.
Yes, I could picture him hanging on the cross with that nasty crown of thorns causing dribbles of blood down his face. But back then, I did not see him with my mind’s eye as being someone who was just as real as me, with the same capacity to be overwhelmed by emotion and life circumstances. I did not grasp the intertwining of his humanity and his divinity in the way I do today.
The more I have studied him and grown in my personal interaction with him in the Spirit, the more I realize the real capacity of Jesus to reach down in to the depths of my heart and to share the most human of my experiences and emotions. Jesus was a humble human being when he came—he experienced the full range of human emotion, and he struggled just as we do with exhaustion, grief, anger, and the limitations of his human body. And he shares all these experiences with us today as he lives in us and with us by his Spirit.
Jesus understood the limits of his human body and human spirit in a way I’m still struggling to. He knew how to care for himself so he would have the capacity to be a fountain of living water for the people he encountered, so the Spirit could flow through him out to others to bring healing, restoration and renewal.
He understood when his limit had been reached, and would take time away to be alone with his Abba so he could be renewed. He knew when he needed to shut out the noise and sleep—even if it was in a boat. And he knew when he needed to replenish his body with food and water.
When we do ministry, or even do life, we forget sometimes we do not need to work so hard we end up exhausted and burnt out. Jesus did not set us that example. He knew his ministry power and direction came from his Abba via the Holy Spirit, and so he protected the time he spent with God. He understood where he drew his strength for fruitful ministry, so he made sure he was abiding in his Abba by the Spirit so his ministry would bear “much fruit”.
He did not consider himself above emotions or emotional expression. Rather, he expressed a full range of emotions. He was honest with his need to grieve the loss of his cousin John the Baptizer, and so took time away from ministry to others, to minister to his own soul. Jesus was not afraid of tears—he didn’t not find them to be “unmanly” for him to express. Instead, he shared in the tears of others, bearing their sorrows with them, and acknowledging his genuine sorrow and grief when it came.
Jesus was just as human as you and me. And yet the early church emphatically insisted he was not just a human being. No, what they experienced, saw, and heard, was decidedly divine. And it was walking around in the same body as the One who was so human. And so they knew they had to find a way to articulate this in such a way that the real humanity and the real divinity of Jesus was protected and preserved. And so we have the creeds today, which are very clear about the nature of Jesus being both God and man, existing in both the same essence as the Father, and the same essence as our created humanity.
It’s hard to get our minds around. But really, it’s a statement to you and to me of the value God places upon our humanity. It was important enough to him to preserve our humanity and to restore it to the glory which was our before the world began. He loved you and me with the same love he has for his unique Son, and shared his blessed Spirit with us so we can experience and realize the reality of that in everyday life.
God is not ashamed of our tears. He created us with the capacity to cry so we are able to share with God in his tears over things which grieve his heart. Maybe Abba doesn’t actually shed tears or cry like a human begin would, but I’ll be Jesus does! He’s still human today, bearing our humanity in the presence of his Abba, interceding for us and restoring and renewing us.
Jesus shares our sorrows and our joys. And he seeks a greater capacity in us for a deep spiritual relationship with God through Jesus in the Spirit so we will be about his business of being on mission, and will begin to bear spiritual fruit. He will not stop working towards that end in you and in me. May his efforts in us and through us be fruitful, while at the same time allowing us to fully rest in his gracious work rather than in our own frantic efforts.
Jesus, I pray we will not be afraid to be truly human, for you did not fear your humanness. May you continue to be with those who struggle with emotional overload, that they may find healing and renewal, and a desire to give themselves room to be real and broken in their humanity, for that is where you meet with them and bind them to yourself in your Spirit. Give us all the capacity to both hear your words of life, but also to live them out in such a way our lives and the lives of those around us are transformed. In your Name, Jesus, we pray. Amen.
“During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.” Hebrews 5:7–10 NIV
Back to the Who of Jesus
by Linda Rex
One of the hazards of being a pastor, I am learning, is receiving emails from concerned people who diligently attempt to correct what I believe and teach. For the most part, the emails I have received from these people directly contradict sound theology and attempt to persuade me to believe some esoteric prophecy about the end of the world coming at a particular time in the near future. And of course, none of these things have happened as predicted in these emails.
I received one of these emails recently in which the author boldly declared a new prediction of upcoming events in the light of what occurred with the ministry and death of Herbert Armstrong. I won’t go into what he believes or predicts because it is not worth your time or mine to review it, but I was struck by his statement that with Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, Jesus is no longer the Son of Man, but is today only the Son of God.
I’m sorry to hear he believes this. It is a useful belief for him, because in his predictions, saying the Son of Man is Jesus would contradict what he believes. It does away with what he believes is going to happen in the future. Apparently, it seems to me, it is inconvenient for him to believe the risen Jesus Christ is today, both the Son of God and the Son of Man.
Personally, I feel it is very important we understand who Jesus Christ is. Understanding who he is as the Son of God and the Son of Man establishes a basis for our belief in God and who he is, and what he is doing in the world today and will do in the future. If we do not grasp who Jesus is as the God/man who delivered us from sin and death, how can we understand ourselves and who we are? How can we understand who God is, and how much he loves us and desires to have a relationship with us?
Believe me, I cannot be critical of anyone who sees this whole thing differently from me. There was a time in my life when I had no clue of the significance of Jesus being both the Son of God and the Son of Man. I don’t think I even knew what this meant. I had no idea of the fundamental nature of this belief, much less how the early church came, by the Spirit’s direction, to establish the boundaries around this doctrine.
For this reason I am very grateful for my classes at Grace Communion Seminary on the history of the church since the time of Christ. So much I had been taught as I grew up in Worldwide Church of God was not true, or at the least, very misguided. The more I learned, the more I began to see how the Spirit worked to bring the church (and no, back then it was not the Roman Catholic Church or any other specific church. It was just the universal body of believers.) into a unified understanding of the nature of God and Jesus Christ, and the central core beliefs surrounding this truth.
In one of my textbooks, “What Christians Believe: A Biblical and Historical Summary” by Johnson and Webber, the authors quote a rule of faith which appeared at the same time in various parts of the Roman Empire toward the end of the second century. I’d like to quote it here:
“[We believe] in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His [future] manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father.” (p128, 129)
Even back then, while there were still people who were closely related to those who had known, heard and seen Christ, there was the understanding of the humanity of Jesus continuing on after his death into a glorified humanity. It was important to the body of believers to stress this because of the Gnostic heresy which was pressing in upon them.
The authors go on to say, “The rule of faith clearly affirmed an enfleshed God. Jesus Christ, it proclaimed, is no apparition, but a true human being who lived in the flesh, died in the flesh, and rose in the flesh. In this affirmation the church made a statement that Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man.” (p. 129)
This, of course, was hammered out then in greater detail as the earlier church fathers met and began to clarify just what the incarnation of Jesus Christ involved, and what occurred before and after his crucifixion and resurrection. And fundamental to this discussion was, “Who is and was Jesus Christ?” The conclusions drawn from the Chalcedon council in 451 A.D. clarified the creed, and spoke of Jesus Christ as having two natures present in one person.
Of course, there has always been some debate as to the nature of Jesus’ person—how can someone be both God and man at the same time? What does this mean? Does he only have God’s will, or does he have a human will as well?
These are all great questions and worth consideration, but we need to consider some of these things pertain to the divine mystery of God’s transcendent being. Subsequent councils discussed and hashed out many things. There were disagreements and contradictions, and errors were made. At times, believers, especially those with more naturalistic or liberal interpretations, have drifted away from this fundamental belief about Who Jesus was.
In recent years, Karl Barth challenged these views and called the church back to an understanding of God being present in Jesus Christ in his human flesh, and in this way drawing all humanity up into true relationship in his resurrection and ascension. In spite of the Gnostic and other heresies which continue to raise their heads, there are believers today who hold to the understanding that Jesus was indeed God the Word present in human flesh, who both was and is God and man, and who has not ceased to be the Son of man now that he is risen from the dead.
I believe it was Athanasius who said, “The unassumed is the unhealed.” If Jesus did not and does not bear our humanity now, as he did then, then we as human beings have no hope. I agree with Johnson and Webber who write, “We stand in the historical tradition and affirm that our Savior was fully divine, for only God can save, and we affirm that our Savior is fully human, for only that which he became in the Incarnation is saved (salvation requires one who is fully man to represent us).” (p. 146)
I worship a God who is so holy and pure and just he is able to take on our humanity and transform it into something completely new. If he had and has the capacity to take on our humanity, to “be sin” on our behalf, he has the capacity to remove our sins and to make us new, uniting us with himself in his own being as Jesus Christ, the God/man. And as Jesus himself said, “What God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matt. 19:6) Let’s not separate God from us as humanity, for he has joined himself to us forever in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ.
Thank you, Father, for your great love, and your faithfulness in fulfilling your covenant with humanity and with Israel. Thank you that in Christ and by the Spirit, you took on our humanity and transformed it, and you have brought us up in Christ’s glorified humanity to participate in your divine life and love forever. Open our hearts and minds to fully grasp and receive the truth of your loving gift to us of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man, who lives forever in glory with you, and your precious Spirit, by whom you dwell in us. In your Name we pray, amen.
“You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.” 1 John 3:5 NASB
“For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” Hebrews 4:15 NASB
“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” 2 Corinthians 5:21 NASB
“Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.” 1 John 3:2 NASB
Losing My Identity, or Finding It
by Linda Rex
This afternoon I was wandering about in a car lot in the blazing hot sun trying to find a particular automobile. I had spent hours researching this project and I was determined to find what I believed would be the solution to my transportation issues. I was growing hotter and sweatier and no closer to my goal, and was beginning to think the whole thing was a bad idea, when a young man in a golf cart stopped me and asked if he could help.
I was grateful to be allowed to explain my dilemma and to take a seat in the shade of the cart’s canopy. My simple request was one he was immediately able to offer me an acceptable answer to. And in the end, the result of his helpful assistance was I ended up in the showroom filling out documents which would ultimately lead to me being the happy new owner of another pre-owned car.
As I was filling out this form and that form, and handing over my license and credit card, and giving my personal information, I grew more and more nervous. I don’t like having to give a perfect stranger this type of information. How do I know whether they will use it only for the purpose for which it is intended? With all the stories I’ve heard about identity theft, I get the willies about freely disbursing my personal information.
My only hope is in the mercy of a loving God. Dear Lord, I thought, please make them blind to what they see, deaf to what they hear and forgetful to what they’ve had access to. It’s kind of chilling for me to be putting myself at someone’s mercy in this way. My only hope is a gracious God looking out for me.
Later I got to thinking about this whole situation and about my discomfort with it. So much is bound up in our identity nowadays. We can’t get a job without certain documents, and we can’t make purchases or have a bank account without specific documentation.
Our identity seems to be boiled down to a social security number, a birth certificate, a passport or a driver’s license. Our place in the world, and our ability to function in this culture, is based on a few facts, numbers and letters. All it takes it is someone to “borrow” that information and we’re sunk.
This put me in mind of what is written in Genesis about our beginnings as human beings. We were made in the image of the God who is Father, Son and Spirit. This God said we are made to live in loving relationship with him and one another, and as men and women, to be like him. And he declared this creation to be “very good”.
Isn’t it interesting what the serpent said to the man and the woman—that if they ate of the tree which was forbidden, their eyes would be opened and they would be like God? I am grateful to the person who reminded me of what God had done in the first place—human beings already were like God—they were made in God’s image. So they did not need to eat anything to become what they already were!
It seems we as human beings have spent millennia trying to become what God has already declared we are. And God came in human flesh to finish what he began by making humanity in his image. In fact, in Hebrews it says Jesus Christ was the exact replica of his Father. In Jesus, our humanity takes on its most perfect form, and he, by the Spirit, is working this out in each of us, making us into the humanity we were meant to be—made in the image of God.
Our identity—something we are usually so busy trying to create and protect—is not really bound up in all the things we think it is bound up in. Yes, we need ways to function in this culture so we can buy, sell, interact and do all the things we do as humans. But even so, our real identity is not something external to us, or something which can be placed upon us. Our identity is not determined by other people, or by our feelings and desires, or by our parents. Our identity is so much more fundamental than that.
Being made in the image of the God who called himself “I Am” means we as human beings are all who God declares we are. The evil one constantly tries to tell us, as he did Adam and Eve, we are not, and we believe him. Just take a minute to think about all the times you, and I, have believed the lying tapes which run in our heads and say, “I am not smart; I am not pretty; I am not loveable; I am going to amount to anything; I am not good.”
These lying tapes even tell us what we are: “I am a jerk; I am worthless; I am a failure.” It seems the evil one always knows exactly what to tell us about who we are so we will be stopped from being those things which truly reflect the divine glory which is ours. He doesn’t want us to shine with the image of God, and so he does everything he can to divert our attention from the truth that we already are God’s image bearers, and in Christ we can live like we are by the Spirit.
The evil one seeks to steal, besmirch and destroy our identity every chance he gets. He even uses human beings to take from us what is rightfully ours, so we lose faith in ourselves, our world, and even our God. How devastating to lose our identity! And yet most of us don’t realize we haven’t lost the identity God gave us when he created us, and which he redeemed through his Son Jesus.
God knows who we really are. And he constantly speaks to us through his Spirit and his Word, reminding us of the reality we are his adopted children, made in his image to reflect his nature and to share in his love and life. This is the truth, and all the evil one’s efforts to steal this from us are fruitless. Because in Jesus, God has bound us to himself with cords of love, and has reaffirmed in his Son we reflect the exact image of the Father, Son, and Spirit. Our true identity is secure in Jesus Christ. And that, we can count on.
Thank you, Father, for determining from the beginning we would reflect your image and likeness. Thank you for sending your Son to become human as we are human so our broken humanity might be redeemed and restored to reflect your glory. Thank you we share in your identity even now. And even though someone may steal from us the items which we use to identify ourselves in this world, we are still secure in our true identity as your image bearers. Comfort us with your tender, protective care—watch over your children and keep us and those things which are ours, safe. Defend us. Our trust is in you, through your Son Jesus. Amen.
“God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Genesis 1:27 NASB
Face to Face
by Linda Rex
One of the hazards of a long-distance relationship is the inability engage a person in face-to-face conversation. Communication tools such as Skype™ and Vsee™ make video-chats possible now, and I love the way we are able to see someone while we talk with them without having to make a long trip somewhere in order to do so. A conversation via computer may not be the same as having a face-to-face conversation, but it is much better than simply having one on the phone.
Face-to-face conversations have the advantage of enabling us to see the body language and facial expressions of the person talking with us. We are able, if we are good at it, to sense the sincerity and intent behind what is being said. Often we can determine a person’s mood, their hostility or friendliness, just by how they respond as they talk.
To some limited extent we can have meaningful and deep conversations over the phone. But in order to have an honest and open relationship, we really need to meet with someone face-to-face. We need to be able to meet with them in person. If we want get to know someone in a deeper way than just an ordinary, casual conversation, we’ll want to get them by themselves, and spend time just talking, face-to-face.
I love the way God made the effort to engage Moses in these kinds of conversations. In Exodus we read about the relationship God built with Moses over time, and how the Lord spoke to Moses “face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend.” As time passed, their relationship grew to where they conversed just like we do when we are talking with a close friend.
We may think to ourselves, that’s just Moses. God doesn’t have those kinds of conversations with ordinary people like you or me. After all, he is God. He has much more important things to do than talk to all the people in the world individually. We can kind of grasp the idea of everyone praying to God, but God replying and having a conversation with each person? Now that’s a different story entirely.
And yet, this is what each of us was created for. When God walked and talked with Adam and Eve in the garden, it was a prelude to what he had in mind for each of us. He created you and me for relationship—with him and with one another. He did not intend for us to live independently of him, or of one another. We are created for interdependence, for intimate relationship.
And when I say intimate relationship, I’m not talking about a sexual or romantic relationship. I’m talking about sharing the deep parts of our minds, hearts and souls with another person—sharing life and being at a very deep level.
I believe the current obsession with sexual and romantic relationships of every kind has short-circuited our capacity for true, deep relationships—the kind we were created for with God and one another. Our ability to use social media for relationships is great, but we need to be careful not to let this keep us from building deep, meaningful relationships with the people in our lives through face-to-face interactions. It is very easy to keep people, and God, on the fringes of our lives and never really engage anyone at any kind of a deep level. And this is not healthy.
Going deep with people and with God in this way means becoming vulnerable and facing up to the mess inside ourselves. We don’t want to expose our deepest hurts and brokenness to others, much less to God. And yet, this is the path to healing.
Opening up these wounds to others, to us, or to God, means facing things we don’t want to face. We may have to change or deal with things we don’t want to have to deal with. We may have to do the dirty work of dealing with family dysfunctions or grieving our losses. Sadly, we often prefer taking painkillers and finding other ways to numb our pain rather than facing our issues. But we weren’t created to ignore our pain or to try to hide it—we were created to engage it, and through sharing it with God and others in healthy ways, find comfort and renewal.
Face-to-face sharing is an important part of the process of healing. Getting real with someone about what’s going on at a deep level in our hearts and minds is essential to our mental, emotional and spiritual health and our physical health as well. We need to drop our facades, and our false selves, and just be real with God and one another. And this is not easy to do, much less safe. Not everyone can be trusted with our secrets.
But God understands our need for face-to-face, conversations at this deep level. This face-to-face sharing is so important to God, he came himself to share in our humanity. He became one of us—the Word in human flesh. He experienced what it was like to be born of a woman, grow up as a child, be baptized and live as an adult, and he shared every part of our human existence. God came and met with us face-to-face in an even more personal way than how he met with Moses centuries before.
God wanted to share every part of our existence and be included in it. This was so important to him, he was willing to take on our humanity and share all we experience as human beings, including death and suffering. But he did much more than that.
He brought our human existence to a new level by raising Jesus Christ from the dead, and by sending his Spirit to dwell in human hearts. God’s Spirit in you and me means God dwells in humanity—he meets with us face-to-face within our own human hearts. Nothing can be more intimate than that!
In fact, we cannot escape him now—no matter how much we try. Eventually he will open our inner eyes to see, we have Christ in us, the hope of glory. We have God in us—Immanuel. Better than any Skype™ conversation—we can converse with God in our hearts and have a dialogue in which, by the Spirit, God knows us intimately and we can know God’s heart and mind as well. Our conversations with God can be just as deep and wonderful as those Moses had because God calls you and me friend, and speaks to us in our hearts.
You may say, “How can this be? God doesn’t speak to me. And that’s kind of creepy, you know—someone talking to me in my heart.” Well, perhaps it’s not that God hasn’t been speaking, but rather, that we haven’t been listening.
I was taught to be afraid of that inner voice who spoke in my heart and so I never listened. I ignored it and pushed it away. But when I did finally talk with God and invite him to speak to me and to help me to hear and discern what was his voice (and not the other unhealthy voices), I discovered he was speaking words of love and grace to me all along. I found that God really does want to walk and talk with us, and share all of life with us. And this has been the experience of many others who have sought a deeper walk with Jesus.
God has brought each and every one of us through Jesus and by the Spirit to a place where we are able to have a deep, intimate, face-to-face relationship with him. In growing in our relationship with him, we will find ourselves growing in our ability and desire to have deep, meaningful relationships with one another. And we will be living out who we really are—human beings, created for loving relationship with God and one another.
Father, thank you, through your Son and by your Spirit, you have brought us into deep, intimate relationship with yourself. Thank you for making it possible for us to have close, intimate relationships with one another as well. Grant us the grace to set aside time and space to listen and talk with you and one another face-to-face, for this is what we were created for. Through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend. … And He said, ‘My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest.’” Exodus 33:11a, 14 NASB
God’s Heart Seed
By Linda Rex
There is beauty in human language, no matter which one you may choose to examine. It is marvelous that people are able to communicate thoughts, feelings, facts and ideas through a series of sounds or some type of marks on paper. We rely on oral and written communication in our everyday lives, and in our older years we often take our ability to converse with others for granted.
I cannot imagine what it must be like to be lost within oneself and not be able to hear or see anything or anyone. How dark a place that is to not be able to communicate with the world around you in such a way that they understand you!
But this is no different than our God working to communicate to his creation the depth and width and height of his love for us. He has worked through millennia to bring humanity to the place where we could begin to understand and receive the love he has for us. His efforts to reach us have included his participation in our very human existence.
The apostle John describes it in this way: “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). God’s Word in human flesh. God’s Son took on our human existence, lived as we live and died the death we die. But he took our human existence farther than the grave—he arose from death with a resurrected body and ascended to be with the Father forever.
Scripture says that whatever God says he does. (Jer. 12:25, 28; Isa. 45:21–23). God’s Word always accomplishes whatever God’s purpose for it is. What God says and what God does are one and the same. He does not say one thing and do another. Because God’s Word and being are one.
The wonderful thing about God sending his Word to dwell in human flesh is that Jesus promised once he returned to the Father that he would send his Spirit, “the other Helper”, in his place. In other words, the Word would be sent again to dwell not just in one human being as the person Jesus Christ, but into all humanity. Peter talked about this in his first sermon, saying that God poured out his Spirit on everyone. (Acts 2:17).
There is the reality that the Word of God is poured out through the Holy Spirit into every human heart. God calls us to receive his “implanted Word” (James 1:21–22). When we receive God’s Word, and allow it to govern our existence, it becomes our way of being. In other words, the way we live, act and talk begins to reflect the very nature and being of God in Christ. The Spirit of God transforms us.
I regret the years I believed that in order to be a Christian, I had to somehow get rid of all I am so that I could be filled with Christ. I have often preached this or written about this. But the language of it isn’t quite accurate.
God in me does not require that I go away or disappear. Rather, God in me means the same type of hypostatic union that existed in Christ. God in human flesh. God created each of us with a marvelous human glory that lies asleep—dormant and lying in darkness—because of our lostness. God awakens us to new life—that means something new comes to life and grows, producing blossoms and spiritual fruit. You and I become the human beings God meant for us to be all along. We grow up into Christ, yet in doing so, we become fully ourselves.
The beauty of spring is watching things that seem to be dead awaken to life again. They have life inside them, but are asleep, dormant throughout the winter, like many of us who are busy hiding within the darkness of our souls. The quickening of the life of Christ within us by the Spirit as God’s Son shines on us can be, and often is, refused, rejected, ignored and suppressed. And slowly, but surely we will die inside.
Or we can respond to the work God is doing in us and with us to bring us to a spiritual awakening. We can heed God’s call to “Wake up!” and begin to let God make the changes in us and in our lives that will bring out our true glory—the glory God meant us to have.
There is divine life in you and in me. The Holy Spirit breathes in us. There is a special beauty meant for each woman, prepared for her to blossom and shine in her own unique glory. There is a strength and manliness God meant every man to have, waiting to come forth in him in true masculinity. There is humility, patience, goodness that is waiting to be expressed by each of us. The fruit is there waiting to be borne, when the branches come to full leaf, and the flowers are fully pollinated by God.
God calls us to trust in him as he brings us through this process of transformation. We cannot make a plant grow and produce fruit. It is something that happens while we watch. We can tend a plant and help provide the optimum environment for it—but the miracle of fruitbearing comes from the life inherent within the plant, and the provision of water, soil and sunshine from God himself.
There is amazing fruit to be borne in your life and mine, and it’s being produced right now, if we were only aware of it. We participate in the process of growth and fruitbearing as we respond to God’s good work in each of us, and help tend his work in one another. We open ourselves up to the Light, and drink in the water of God’s Word and Spirit, and we grow, blossom and bear fruit.
This prayer comes to mind, and I offer it for each of us today: “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:14–21 NASB)
“Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart, for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.” 1 Peter 1:22–23 NASB
Seriously, God?
by Linda Rex
Recently I’ve been reminded of the importance of taking each day as it comes. Last week I had made plans to take some time off to catch up on some things at home. When I’m busy doing ministry, sometimes other important things get left until later when I can get to them.
So having made these plans, I took my mom to her doctor appointment. From there, we ended up in the hospital for several days. It seems that it was a good thing that I took time off, but God had something else he wanted me to do during that time. It was more important that I be with my mother than it was to get those other things done.
I’ve never thought that much before about how arrogant it is for us to assume that we know what we are going to do with each moment of each day before it ever happens. Really, when I think about it, I can’t help but realize that I have no control of what’s going to happen to me or to those whom I have made plans with or for. I can sketch out a pretty good to-do list, but what gets done is another story all together.
I don’t know whether you have had the experience of having your day all planned out and then having it go a different direction entirely. Like the time I made a simple trip to find food during my lunch hour, and ended up in conversation with a police officer about the lady who had backed her car into mine but insisted that I was at fault. That day was a complete disaster in many ways, but in the end, it all worked out.
When we come to see that all of life is holy and caught up in the life and love of God himself, we find that the everyday things are full of encounters with the divine. Life isn’t just something we do on our own, under our own power, but is a relationship we share with Father, Jesus and the Spirit. We walk, moment by moment, in a way that takes into account the reality that we are not alone, but are participating in Christ’s life in this world.
We can act as if we are all on our own, without anyone having any say in our decisions or in our activities or relationships. Or we can act as if all of life involves a sharing with God. In other words, we quit going through life as though we are alone. It’s not just I now. It’s we—our divine Dad, our divine Brother, our living Breath—all share life with us, in us and for us. We’re never alone.
Acting as if we are in a real relationship with God means being in an ongoing conversation with him. It means that no matter what we do, we do it in companionship with God.
We may think that is a little awkward, especially when there are parts of life we would prefer to keep to ourselves. But as the psalmist says, there is no place where we can hide from God—he’s everywhere at all times. (Psalm 139) Perhaps that is why humans often prefer to believe there is no God at all, because if there really is a God, and he is really God, then he knows all our secrets and not only that, he has the right to tell us how to live our lives.
This is why it is offensive to some when we say that Jesus Christ has taken on our humanity, and has made us truly human, the way we were really meant to be. Because that means that Jesus Christ defines humanity. That means God gets to tell us what it means to be human.
To live in opposition to what God designed a human being to be is to live in opposition to ourselves and everyone else. Living in a way we were never meant to live means that we are living a lie. And we reap the consequences of living in that way.
We are all living in God’s presence moment by moment. We can enjoy that encounter with the living Lord, and take pleasure in sharing life with him. Or we can expend a lot of effort attempting to live life under our own power and even in opposition to him. He’s allowed us to do that—but he never meant for us to do that. He doesn’t want us to suffer the consequences of living that way.
So I think from now on, my to-do list needs to have an “If the Lord wills” clause in it. Since I’m on mission with Jesus in the world to share with everyone the love of God in Christ through the Spirit, I think I need to reevaluate my priorities as I make my daily lists. It’s a challenge to remember this, but here’s to taking some small steps in living life in companionship with God this day and from now on.
Thank you, Lord, that all of life is lived in your presence through your grace and love. I thank you that Jesus is all that we were meant to be as human beings, and that you have empowered each of us by your Spirit to live in relationship with you through him. Remind us each day to walk with you in joyful companionship and reverent love. For Christ’s sake, amen.
“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.’ Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.’” James 4:13–15 NASB
Being Human—Who Am I?
by Linda Rex
Recently I was loaned a DVD set which contains the TV series “Firefly”. From what I have seen so far, this space western contains all the necessary attributes of a western drama—knockdown drag out fights, shootouts, ambushes, a train robbery and much more.
It tells the human story in a post-modern way, so there is much to be gathered from the human interactions. But it is a much more graphic style of storytelling than I prefer, and I think some may even find it offensive. (It’s definitely not kid-friendly, so I’m not recommending it.)
The creepiest and most horrific part, I thought, is the role that was given to the Reavers. These are humans who are so twisted and depraved that they torture, abuse and cannibalize any humans they come near. They haunt the outer reaches of the galaxy where people are settling new planets and there is very little law and order.
In the piece “Bushwhacked”, the crew of the spaceship “Serenity” come upon a spaceship whose travelers have been ambushed and savagely brutalized and killed by the Reavers. As they try to decide what to do in the situation, they begin to argue over whether or not the Reavers were even human. Could people who did the things they did to other humans even be considered human beings?
Indeed, I wondered as I watched this, at what point do human beings cease to be human beings? And what would it take for a person to cease being the human being he or she was meant to be? Is there a description that we can go by to decide who is and who isn’t truly human?
If we were to be honest with ourselves, we would have to admit that we all have times and places where we are less than what we were meant to be. We are inhumane to one another, and sometimes even to ourselves.
The early church wrestled with the question of who God is, and who Jesus and the Holy Spirit are in relationship with God. Why were these important questions?
These were important questions because who God is, and Christ and the Holy Spirit are, determines who we are. Because we are created in God’s image. God, who is three Persons in one Being and who lives in an eternal relationship of mutual love and respect, defines our personhood. He is the God we were created to reflect.
This is why the doctrine of the Trinity is so essential to our humanity. God, who is Father, Son and Spirit, is one Being, but with three distinctive ways of being. We cannot separate the Father from the Son or from the Spirit, yet they are inseparable. The Son is not the Father, is not the Spirit, and yet they are one. Unity, uniqueness, and equality—this describes the Trinity. This transcendent mystery is the basis for our humanity.
When we fail to acknowledge or submit to the reality that God defines us and our humanity, and how we are to live in relationship with others—in equality, oneness, mutual love and respect–that is when we cease to be truly human. When we try to live out of sync with who we were created to be, then we begin being inhumane—not human—not who or what we were meant to be. And so we end up creating misery for ourselves and others.
The problem is—this is the human condition. We’re just that way. Somehow, from the beginning, we have chosen to define ourselves by our own rules, deciding for ourselves what is good and what is bad, and eliminating as much as is possible any memory of there being a God who defines us. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is a tree we eat of on an almost daily basis—we, in our arrogance, have sought to redefine what it means to be a human being.
What we need is some genuine humility in the presence of the One who made us and gives us each day all we need for life and godliness. It is in acknowledging our inhumanity, our pride and arrogance, that we will begin to truly find ourselves.
God has already resolved the issue with our broken humanity—he came into our human existence, took on our human flesh and in Jesus Christ, lived out a truly human existence—one that he has given to each of us through the Holy Spirit if we will welcome him.
Will there always be those who refuse to live out the new, transformed humanity given us in Jesus Christ? For now, at least until the day God draws a line and affirms their choice to refuse and to live apart from the grace God has offered them in his Son, and allows them to live in the darkness of their consequences forever.
Meanwhile, it would be worth our while to begin practicing some humility and grace in our relationships with God and one another. It would be a good thing for us to express some genuine love and respect toward each and every person in our life, even though they may behaving in some very not human ways. We would find our lives would be much different if we began living out of the divine definition of who we are, rather than the one we have picked out for ourselves.
Holy God, forgive us our arrogance in trying to define you and ourselves according to our limited and often misguided human reason and wisdom. Forgive us for the inhumane ways with which we treat one another and you. Thank you, that ultimately, you are the One who defines us, and who has restored our true humanity in Jesus Christ. Thank you for warmly welcoming us into a personal relationship with you in Jesus Christ through the Spirit. In his name we pray, amen.
“Then David the king went in and sat before the LORD, and he said, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that You have brought me this far?” 2 Sa 7:18 NASB
Our Life in the Trinity 