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Stop Trying to Become More Godly

By Jeremy Myers
39 Comments

Stop Trying to Become More Godly

It is commonly thought that the purpose of the Holy Spirit is to make us more spiritual. That through indwelling and empowering us, He connects us to our “spiritual” side so that we become more Godly and spiritually-minded.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Holy Spirit is given to us, not so that we can be more Godly, but so that we can be more human. So that you can be you, and I can be me.

One of the great lies of the Christian religion is that God wants you to be like Him.

become more godly

This is not true. God does not want you to become like Him. God wants you to become like you.

God wants you to become fully you.

God wants you to become like the person He created you to be.

God does not want you to become fully divine, but to become fully human.

We Must Come out of Hiding

C. S. Lewis once said that the goal of life is to learn to come outside of ourselves. He did not mean that you become less “yourself” but that you become fully “yourself.” Most of us hide our “true self” in the dark recesses of our hearts and minds, afraid that if we come out, people will not like us, love us, or accept us.

We feel that the true person crouching in a dark corner of our heart is not worthwhile, not valuable, not able to contribute, not worth revealing, not worth loving.

This is the great lie, and it seems to me that Christianity often contributes to it.

The Great Lie about Humanity

Many Christians, churches, pastors, and books tell people that who they are is “wrong” and “of this world” and they need to die to themselves and become like Jesus Christ. And while there are attributes and character traits to each of us that need to be sloughed off so that other aspects can be raised up to their potential, I think that we sometimes get the two reversed so that we disown and discredit that which should be strengthened and honored, and we raise up and glorify those things we should let die.

Christianity is great at making clones.

We all wear church-sanctioned clothes, use church-sanctioned language, and engage in church-sanctioned activities.

We do this for the sake of “community” but such community is dead because all the people in it are dead. Sure, they may be breathing and talking, but they are not really living. They are not living within the astonishing uniqueness which God gave them.

You are not fully alive until you become fully you.

The will of God for your life is not a “to do” list so that you can change who you are and become more like God. No, the will of God for your life is that you discover who you are, and then become most fully “you.”

God does not desire a performance, but a person, and He loves you for who you ARE, not for who you might one day become.

As Robert Farrar Capon wrote, “The will of God is … his longing that we will take the risk of being nothing but ourselves” (Hunting the Divine Fox, 275).

God doesn’t want you to be Him; He wants you to be you.

The Holy Spirit Makes You “You”

And this is one reason God gave us the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is given to us to lead us out of the prison of our mind and lead us into being the person that God wants us to be.

The Holy Spirit does not make us like God; the Holy Spirit makes us like ourselves.

The Holy Spirit does not make us more spiritual, but more physical, that is, more human.

The Holy Spirit does not prepare us to live in another world, but prepares us to fully live in this world.

This work of the Holy Spirit happens in two stages.

The Two Stages of Spirit-Inspired Human Development

mystery of godlinessFirst, the Spirit helps us to see that the person we are inside is the person God wants us to be.

The “me” inside is not someone to be ignored, locked away, or hidden from sight, but is someone to be embraced, loved, and strengthened.

The Spirit helps us “see” ourselves for who we really are, and learn to love ourselves for who we are.

Second, the Spirit gives us the courage to reveal ourselves, our true self, to others.

Each of us is made with amazing gifts, talents, abilities, insights, ideas, and personalities. The Spirit helps us learn what these are, and learn how to share these with others.

When we do this, it is then that we begin to become truly human, and in this way, begin to truly reveal Jesus Christ to others.

How to Become Godly

The surprising thing is that when we learn to become more like the person God made us to be, when we live up to our divinely-sanctioned human potential, it is only then that we begin to develop into godliness and Christlikeness.

Jesus was the perfect man, not because He didn’t sin, but because He lived up to His full potential.

Similarly, when we also start to live up to our full potential, when we start to become who God made us to be, when we live the way God created us each to live, it is then that we become more Godly.

It is a classic case of putting the cart before the horse. In chasing after godliness, we end up denying ourselves and who God made us to be, and the result is a life that is less human and less divine. But when we, with the indwelling Holy Spirit as our guide, chase after the person God created us to be, it is then that we become more human. And since becoming the person God made us to be fulfills His plan for us, we become more like God in the process.

So stop trying to become like God. Instead, ask God to use the Holy Spirit to mold and make you more like you.

God is Redeeming Life Bible & Theology Topics: Discipleship, godliness, Theology of Man, Theology of the Holy Spirit

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God is not a Vampire

By Jeremy Myers
12 Comments

God is not a Vampire

The impression we get from much of what passes for Christian teaching is that the closer we get to God, the more like Him we will become, and the less like ourselves.

In this way, God is sort of pictured as a being who sucks the human life out of us and injects us with His own life so that we become less like “me” and more like Him. As part of this exchange, we also get eternal life.

is god a vampire?It occurred to me recently that this sort of Christian theology makes God sound like a vampire. He “bites” us, and while we continue to “look” like ourselves, we get injected with His “blood” so that we “die” but remain alive forever. As the years go by, our human nature starts to fade away, and our “divine” nature starts to show through.

And as is the case with many vampires, they stop being too concerned about the humanity to which they used to belong, and use humans only for selfish reasons and personal gain. This is the dark side of being a vampire, and the dark side of being a Christian.

More Like God

It is not uncommon to encounter Christians who act as if their primary goal in life is to become less “human” and more “like God.” They give up their old friends, interests, desires, hobbies, and tastes, and instead hang out just with other Christians while studying an ancient book and speaking an arcane language that nobody else understands. They look down their noses on all the “unenlightened” humans around them who are “not filled with the Holy Spirit.” They sneer and scoff at all the ignorant masses who “live lives of emptiness and insignificance.”

But is this the way it is supposed to be?

No, I do not think so.

I believe that God wants us to be more human; not less.

God wants us to live

Jesus came so that we might have life, and might have it abundantly (John 10:10). He did not come to destroy fun and turn our smiles into frowns and our laughter into mourning, but to show us how to really have fun in life, to give us joy, and to turn our mourning into laughter.

God did not save us so that we might die, but so that we might live.

God made life, and He made this world, and He gave both to us so that we might enjoy it. Food tastes good because God made it taste good and gave us tastebuds by which to taste it. If God didn’t want us to enjoy food, He wouldn’t have given us tastebuds.

The same goes for the beauty of creation, the joy of good music, the physical sensation of touch, and even the pleasure of sex. These things are not bad or evil, but are good things God gave us to enjoy.

We worship God when we saturate ourselves with the good gifts He has given to us.

Near the end of his life, Bonhoeffer taught that God is not God at the price of emptying me of my humanity; humanity does not consist in letting oneself be sucked dry by a divine vampire! (Wink, The Human Being, 37).

The 19th Century philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach criticized Christianity by saying that we have made God in our own image, and in so doing, have become less human. He said that by putting all of our best traits onto God, we decide that these traits are not “human” but divine, and thus, we are dehumanized. Having projected what it means to be human onto God, we have become less human as a result.

The Christian religion has argued the opposite, but with similar conclusions. Seeing from Scripture that we were made in the image of God, we argue that the goal of life is to empty ourselves and become more like God. Life, we say, is found in conforming to the image of God and becoming less human as a result.

It seems that Jesus revealed a different path than either of these. While agreeing that God made us in His image, Jesus disagreed that this means we must empty ourselves of our humanity and become more like God. Jesus came that we might have life and might have it more abundantly. Jesus wants us not to empty ourselves of our humanity, but rise up to what it means to be fully human.

become godly by becoming yourself

Becoming Fully Human

God is not most glorified when we become more like Him, but when we become more like us.

God did not make us to be God, but to be human, fully human.

We become more “godly” by becoming ourselves; that is, by becoming who God made us to be.

To fully worship God is to fully live as humans. He made us to be humans, and we fulfill our purpose by living as humans.

And this is what sets a relationship with God apart from all other belief systems in the world. Most religions in the world try to get us to be less human so that we can become like God. Atheism rightly reacts to this wrong idea, and says that to fully live, we must be fully human. The problem with atheism, is that they believe we must reject God to become fully human.

God agrees with atheists. God too believes that our purpose is to become fully human. But Jesus teaches that we only become fully human when we live as God intended. The “rules” of God are not provided to destroy life and fun and pleasure, but to maximize them.

Atheism says: “You have made God and by giving him up, you become more human.”
Religion says: “God has made us and by following Him, we become less human.”
Jesus says, “God had made us, and by following Him, you become more human.”

Jesus became human, not to lead us back to God, but to lead us back to humanity.

So start to become more “Godlike” today. How? By learning to live like yourself. This is what God wants.

God is Redeeming Church, Redeeming Theology Bible & Theology Topics: anthropology, atheism, Discipleship, freedom, godliness, humanity, John 10:10, life, Theology of Man

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