Tuesday: You Are Akin to the Divine but Not Divine
WEEK 14
TUESDAY
YOU ARE AKIN TO THE DIVINE BUT NOT DIVINE
John 14:16-17
We have been studying how effortlessly the disciples found release from themselves and then found themselves amazingly. They consented to be nothing and became everything.
A question was asked of a religious leader: “I can understand the body and the mind, but what is the spirit?” He replied: “The spirit is the Spirit.” He identified the human spirit with the Divine Spirit.
But the New Testament is clear on that point: “The Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit” (Rom 8:16 RSV). There they are not the same; the Spirit bears witness with our spirit. They are separate entities but deeply akin. If the Holy Spirit and our spirits are the same, then the attitude is self-realization, self-discovery, self-cultivation, self-knowing. But there is no place for self-surrender. There is nothing to surrender to—you are It! If we are not divine, however, but made in the image of the divine and therefore closely akin to it, then, being created, we find our life in self-surrender to the Creator, God. Having freely given the one thing we own, God gives it back to us. The self is realized, realized through renunciation. Try to realize yourself without renouncing yourself. It gives you an initial shot in the arm and makes you feel lifted for the moment, intoxicated by the wine of your own wordy assertion of divinity; but it ends in a letdown and disillusionment. So people wander from one cult to another looking for a new shot and a new boost to their essential egoism. It just doesn’t work. But self-surrender, leading to self-realization, does work; and it works to the degree it is tried.
The people of the Acts were free from perplexing personal problems because they had solved the central problem—the problem of what to do with themselves. They solved it by self-surrender. When they consented and cooperated, the Holy Spirit took over their selves, cleansed these selves from selfishness, and then gave them back their selves—adjusted, free, and happy. Someone has said: “Modern man is a problem to himself.” These men were not problems to themselves; they were only possibilities.
O Lord, your way is our way. When we take your way, we find our own. When we are most yours, we are most ourselves; bound to you, we are free. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I am made a little less than God; today I shall be a little more like God.