As the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like him and reflect his glory even more." 2 Corinthians 3:18

The scriptures
communicate that Christ was both fully human and fully divine. While most
orthodox Christians would acknowledged this to be true, the church has
historically favored the divine Jesus over the human one. I mean, let’s face
it: the deified Jesus is a whole lot easier to deal with than the human Jesus.
As Michael Frost observes in his book Exiles,

"To this otherworldly,
super spiritual Jesus I simply have to offer my devotion, my worship, my
adoration… [But] if indeed Jesus is too human (or barely human at all), he
calls from me a worrying response. He challenges my humanness and demands more
from me that I can imagine offering.”

Rob Bell tells a
story in Velvet Elvis of a young man who was struggling with sexual six. His spiritual walk was
a roller coaster of emotional highs and lows as he would fall to sin, feel tremendous
guilt, repent, and experience restoration only to fall again and repeat the
process over and over again. One morning as they were meeting over coffee, the young man admitted
that he was convinced the rest of his life would play out in much the same fashion
as the previous years had. “After all,” he said, “I’m human. I’m a
sinner.” Bell went on to observe that the man had constructed a personal theology that
justified sin, perfectly designed so that he’d never have
to really change. I’ve known a lot of Christians that live life the exact same
way. I used to be one of them.

The
bible, however, communicates something entirely different. It doesn’t say that
we will always be slaves to sin except but will have our moments.
Nor does it say that Christlikeness is reserved for a few exceptional saints. Ephesians 4:12-13 says that through God’s work in
the church, “the body of Christ [will] be
built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son
of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of
Christ.”

In this way, our story is to be one of progressive abandonment. Like Moses, the closer we
are to God, the more we reflect his glory. The more we reflect his glory, the
more he calls us to surrender. And as we learn to adopt this posture of surrender in our lives, we find ourselves becoming more and more like Christ.

Jesus’ humanity strips me of my excuses. Jesus’ divinity calls me to nothing less.