Does Your Personality Reflect A Unity With God?
Good Morning Friends,
It is said that no person is an island and so too it is with our personality. Our personality is unique but interactive. Without a doubt we are all different, however there is this idea that we are all connected in ways we cannot fully fathom. At some point we realize that everyone is fighting a battle and that we typically know little if anything about it. Then our eyes open to God’s love and we jump in the water of life and see that what we thought was just an isolated island is connected to the whole world. An interesting part of this connectivity for me is caught up in how we view God at work in our lives through our personality. Perhaps this is not unlike the relationship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as we do acts of creativity, redemption and sustaining of others motivated by love. It is most palatable to me in prayer and especially corporate prayer. But also in community building and in being the Body of Christ together. The thought is that this part of our life that makes us distinct from everyone else, our individual personality, also has a component that connects to something…someone too vast for us even to comprehend. At first we are able to see just the tip of the island in a vast ocean. Then we begin to see what is revealed in the great depths of our being. But there is too much below the surface for us to fully comprehend. Thankfully our Creator understands. Connecting to that reality and relationship is the work of our lives. Does Your Personality Reflect A Unity With God?
Scripture: “The Father and I are one.”
John 10:30 (NRSV)
“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. “Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
John 17:20-26 (NRSV)
Message: For the last few days we have been contemplating the personalities of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in unity. Now with some introspection we look to our own personalities and see how they too are connected in our families, businesses, schools and places of worship. Friends, when Jesus spoke about unity, His intent was far beyond patriotism to the Jewish nation of Israel under the rule of Rome. It was a prayer for all time that is to permeate into the fabric of our lives. It is a counterbalance to the reality of Judges 17:6: “In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” It also balances out Proverbs 14:12:”You may think you are on the right road and still end up dead.” Looking at the state of Christianity today and our individual roles in it, we must separate the institutional striving for an authority that compels unity and the irresistible path of influence that is the journey of love in Christianity. Beyond His death, Jesus expected a dynamic and growing body of believers that would last throughout the ages. If we are to be the Body of Christ, living and loving others in this world we must also be disciples in the world… servants, purifying, preserving, and penetrating society for the kingdom of God and His righteousness and peace. We must also have a personality that reflects Jesus’ redeeming acts connected in and by love to creative acts and sustaining acts in community. Here we become God’s people fulfilling God’s promise…Here we discern the difference of an individual act, smoke stacked and siloed from one connected to something greater. Here we realize the impact of a unified Body for which Jesus prayed. Here we experience the love of God and feel, in the core of our personality, whole.
Pray that even though we live in a world of disunity we can rejoice in the reality that Jesus prayed for our unity. Pray that we too desire to be one with God’s love…one with other disciples as a visible manifestation of His glory. Pray our inner life emerges though our interactions with others in ways that honor God. Pray that in Christ our individuality is transformed. Pray that our love and devotion to Jesus brings freedom to our whole personality. Pray we have true fellowship with one another. Pray we experience in our very personality an overflowing love that reflects a unity with God.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 