He Became on of Us

I was reading the Disciplines devotional the other day. The author for the week said that many religions and mythical stories involve the idea of a human trying to become God-like. Success in this scenario involves the human becoming God.

Christianity, once again, demonstrates the opposite. Christ turned the world upside down. Success for him -- success for God -- was for the divine son to become human. The incarnation certainly wasn't so that Jesus could become "more" than he was -- he gave up divine credentials and life with his Father to come to this foreign land.

But what about the opposite -- what about the idea of man becoming divine?

We do believe that we are to strive to become Christ-like. I don't think that means that we are to set a goal of becoming God-like. I think we are to emulate Christ in the way he lived as a human. He not only came to earth to show us what God was like (which he certainly did). He also came so that we could see what humanity was created to be. He showed us what is should be like to be human.

So as grace flood through us, and transforms us, it doesn't change us into gods. Grace changes us into humans, as God intended us to be. Grace frees us to become the person God created us to be.

Success for God was to become one of his created ones, so that he could show us what he created us to become.