Friday: Self-Realization or Self-Surrender?
WEEK 28
FRIDAY
SELF-REALIZATION OR SELF-SURRENDER?
Hebrews 2:6-9
We are studying the mighty positive of the New Testament movement. But it is the positive without jumping the rails into assertions about every person’s divinity or inherent perfection. That would not be the Word become flesh; it would be the Word become word, not anchored in the facts. It would lift the whole thing out of New Testament redemption and put it in the framework of alien philosophies. It would make Christianity deal with extravagances instead of extrications. Humanity, according to the New Testament, is neither divine nor a devil. Humanity is made in the image of God, a “little less than God,” but humanity has fallen and needs redemption, and grace undertakes that redemption; the end is perfection in the image of Christ. Note the end is perfection—not the beginning. To make perfection the beginning is to fly in the face of the facts, for people are not essentially and inherently perfect, and they know it. Any such assertion is romanticizing in regard to human nature. It is to make people go on a jag from the wine of their own extravagant wordiness, and it ends in a rude awakening when the next morning arrives and they have to face the realities of life with the realities of what they are. And those realities do not add up to perfection.
This takes them away from the emphasis on self-surrender and puts it on self-realization. And it does another thing; it accompanies that self-realization by self-assertion. “I am essentially perfect; therefore I can do wonders, perform miracles. I am divine; therefore miracles are my natural accompaniment.” That makes them into a seven-day wonder. But in self-surrender the emphasis throws them back on grace: “I can of myself do nothing; but surrendered to God. God does wonderful things through this unworthy instrument.” That makes for open possibilities—infinite possibilities—but it also makes for humility. I am not the center—God is. I am not perfect, but I am in the hands of the Perfect and am being made into the image of that Perfect to the degree that I cooperate.
O Lord, I thank you for this redemption. It puts me into the dust and then raises me to the highest heaven. It creates a humble glorying in grace. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I belong to the Infinitely Perfect, and today I shall become more like Jesus.