"The true expression of Christian character is not in good-doing, but in God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit divine characteristics in your life, not just good human characteristics. God's life in us expresses itself as God's life, not as human life trying to be godly" -- Oswald.
I found these sentences to be simultaneously comforting and perplexing. Comforting because I have always felt defeated by the words, "Be perfect." How can God command that? He can demand it because he is the Perfect One living in me. Perplexing because what in the world does that mean? How can he live in me? Where? I know we teach three-year-olds to say Jesus lives in their hearts, but really, there is nothing but blood pumping through tissue in that particular section of my chest. Where is he really? In my mind?
Don't be so literal, Barb. OK, I get that. If you spread my chest or crack open my skull, you will not find God there. He is a Spirit, but what does that mean?
Partly, it means this: Mystery beyond my understanding. He is a Person whom I cannot see, hear or touch, and yet, I know he exists. When I try to deny him, make sense of the world without him, I cannot.
So here's where the comfort comes in again: All my do-gooding will not make me like him. If he is to live in me, it will be his doing, not mine.
You want perfection, God? Bring it.
Still following you following Oswald. Thanks.
ReplyDelete