Prayer for Divine Guidance

Heavenly Father, I ask that your Holy Spirit bless and enlighten me as I read, reflect and rest in the boundless riches of salvation that Christ Jesus has won! Abba Father, draw me closer into the Divine Dance with You, Your Son, and Holy Spirit to continually transform my life here on earth to taste life with You in Heaven! Amen.

Reflection

Do you ever feel a restlessness, an ache, that you do not want to settle for less than the life God intended for you? We might not always have words for the restlessness, but we all long to be whole, to be fully alive. Many chase after it in possessions, pleasures, accomplishments, ideologies, and relationships that all prove too small for the greatness that God weaves into us.

This restlessness is not an accident but the echo of God creating us in

His image, crowning us with dignity, and destining us to live in union with

Him. God created us not just to exist, to survive, but to be caught up into

God’s Dance of self-giving love. God did not abandon His purpose for us, but descended into the dark depths of our humanity to bring us inside the life of the Trinity. The Son of God took on our fallen condition, offered perfect obedience for us, bore sin and death for us, and rose on our behalf, not just to forgive us but to join us to the communion of the Trinity. That is the meaning of our salvation: not just forgiven but adopted into Christ’s own relationship with the Father.

In the 2nd century Irenaeus of Lyon famously declared, “The Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself.” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies) Reformer John Calvin echoed this glorious reality, saying of the Son of God: “Ungrudgingly, he took our nature upon himself to impart to us what was his and to become both Son of God and Son of Man in common with us.” (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion) And C. S. Lewis agreed: “The Son of God became man to enable men to become sons of God.” (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)

In Jesus Christ, humanity and deity are forever united, so that in Him we find the destiny for which we were made. “Let us mark, the end of the gospel is to render us eventually conformable to God, and if we may so speak, to deify us.” (John Calvin, Commentary on the Catholic Epistles)

The apostle Peter declares God’s promises to us about participating in His divine nature:

“His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants in the divine nature.” (2 Peter 1:3-4)

Scottish preacher and theologian Alexander Maclaren reflected on the grandeur of becoming “participants in the divine nature”:

“These are bold words, and may be so understood as to excite the wildest and most presumptuous dreams. But bold as they are, and startling as they may sound to some of us, they are only putting into other language the teaching of which the whole New Testament is full, that men may, and do, by their faith, receive into their spirits a real communication of the life of God…‘That ye may be partakers of the Divine nature’ means more than ‘that you may share in the blessings which that nature bestows.’ It means that into us may come the very God Himself.” (Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture, 2 Peter)

We do not become God in essence, but by grace we share more and more in His nature, His life, His holiness, and His love. Peter notes that this is not a human achievement but comes by “divine power” through “his precious and very great promises.” Participating in the divine nature is not pantheism or absorption into deity, but it is partaking in the relational life and love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The apostle Paul calls this God’s “purpose” for us, the life that God intended: that we “be conformed to the image of his son” (Romans 8:28-29). God will complete that which He began in Genesis: “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). By creating us in His image God expresses His desire for relationship with us, inviting us to share in His life and purpose through communion with Him.

Saint Augustine put his finger on the reason for restlessness in the human heart when he prayed: “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” (Augustine of Hippo, Confessions) The restless, God-shaped-vacuum that only God can fill is nothing less than God calling us to join the Dance of life and love in the Trinity.

C. S. Lewis said,

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” (C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, And Other Addresses)

The joy offered us here is just a foretaste of what comes when we see God “face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12). God invites us to taste here in part what we shall one day drink to the full!