BEING HUMAN

“By this you know the Spirit of God; Every Spirit that confesses Jesus as the Christ who has come in the flesh is from God but every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God and this is the spirit of Anti-Christ….” 1 John 4:2-3

“For many deceivers have gone out into the world, people who do not confess Jesus as Christ coming in the flesh. This person is the deceiver and the antichrist…”2 John 1:7

One afternoon, after getting bored with writing arguments and drafting Affidavits, I decided to delight myself with a round of my PC game: “Chinese mahjong”. Expectedly, one round turned into two and then three and then….. you know how it goes. After a while I got stuck in a level and I found myself going over it again and again without completing it. Somewhat frustrated, I suddenly thought to myself “why not ask the Holy Spirit to help you out with this game?” so I did. I said “Holy Spirit, help me finish. Jesus, join me in playing, so we can win.” Just as I had finished saying these words, I got a nudge in my spirit; I could sense Jesus telling me “I was already playing the game with you and as for exercising some sort of divine insight to win, what would be the fun of that?” Wow!!! Good news folks; Jesus loves being human.

There is something about us that makes us want to live superhuman lives; we wish we could fly; we fantasize about having x-ray vision, telepathy, pyrokinetics and so on. We therefore celebrate anyone who looks like they possess these qualities, even if it’s a work of fiction; hence our devotion to characters like Superman, Spiderman, Tony Starks, Edward Cullen and so on.

But we see Jesus and we see a regular guy. He did not possess any supernatural qualities in and of himself. As Jesus, God became totally and irrevocably like us in our fallen state (which is what is meant by God, THE Word becoming ‘Flesh’). Contrary to popular opinion, Jesus never performed any of his miraculous deeds as a result of some “special power” inherent in his DNA. He did all he did in fellowship with the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit. He was born as a baby, and he grew up as a regular child; obedient to his parents and learning new things every day (Luke 2:51-52). He probably had to learn the family business of craftsmanship like everyone else, with many mistakes and missteps. He wasn’t pretending to be Human, he was and is Human. He spent the first thirty years of his life building things and doing nothing extra-ordinary. Now I'm sure he was a very good man and he was sinless, I'm sure people would have regarded his values as a little weird, though good natured but I seriously doubt that he gave life to a dead bird or he healed any of his brothers when they were sick.

Beloved, Jesus did not start being God when he was baptized in the river Jordan and the Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove. He was God right from when he was born; all through his formative years and the period wherein he was a carpenter. Jesus is the express image of the invisible God; he came to make our God known, to express him and to explain him. And what did this image do? He lived a normal human life for thirty straight years. It doesn't mean that God was imitating humans; rather he was showing us that humans are living out Divine life by being human. He also showed the type of total trust and fellowship with the Father that a normal Human was designed to have. We were not created to try and conjure up spiritual power or strengthen ourselves, we were made to draw from His strength and let God be God in our lives.

When we realize that God is not only with us in our human activities, but that we are participating in his life while engaging in human activities, it gives our lives a whole new meaning. Just knowing that God, in the person of Jesus is with me; expressing his life through me when I chat with friends, do my job and even watch a movie tends to magnify the pleasure from those things a million times more. It also makes me realize the importance of what I do and how I live my life. I realize that my humanity is not to be discarded, but to be embraced and enjoyed; because God enjoys it. Hence, we are told to do whatever we are doing in Christ.

There is nothing wrong with being human, we were made by God and he doesn’t make mistakes. If there was a mistake, Jesus would not have remained human in his resurrection. He could have shed his skin and become another entity. That would have meant that our salvation included a transformation into something else, like a being of light; that is a form of heresy called Gnosticism and as we have read in the quotations above, any denial of Jesus’ humanity is a plunge into heresy and anyone who teaches such things is an Anti-Christ.

Please note that I absolutely believe in the supernatural. I also believe the Holy Spirit will teach us all things and will do wondrous things through us. I just don't believe we should look down on our humanity and expect to be transformed into some other type of being, and I believe Jesus has a lot of fun with being human

So enjoy your life, relish the legitimate pleasures of humanity and may the Grace of our Lord Jesus be with you forever