Flesh: Bringing the Incarnation Down to Earth

The incarnational way of life is not about conversion. It’s about adoption. The book of Ephesians strongly implies that Jesus followers are always to be viewed in the context of the family. We are a part of His body, members of God’s household, bride and groom. This understanding is so important because if you miss it, you’ll head out your door in

First off, nothing … but God. No light, no time, no substance, no matter. Second off, God says the word and WHAP! Stuff everywhere! The cosmos in chaos: no shape, no form, no function—just darkness … total. And floating above it all, God’s Holy Spirit, ready to play. Day one: Then God’s voice booms out, “Lights!” and, from nowhere, light floods the

I was thinking of a God who left divine utopia and came into a cesspool of brutal human misery. Why? Because of people. People matter. You matter. God’s reason for coming in the flesh, or better yet for sending His beloved Son in the flesh, is us. It’s me. It’s you.

Therefore, to have skin is to be human, and that’s why flesh becomes the single most important theological, cosmological, and practical essence of our faith. Here’s why. God as Spirit intentionally put on skin for us. This is called the incarnation—a word that means “to take on flesh.”

“Jesus teaches you to live your life as He would live your life.”

Here is what goes through my head: • I rarely feel like I’m doing enough. • I almost always feel that I could do more. • I’m failing in the opportunities that God brings my way. • I tend toward cynicism and apathy because I don’t think my little efforts will do much for the kingdom anyway. But the more I study Jesus and see Him letting God dictate

it may be disorienting to see Jesus’s lack of confrontation, but God has been doing it this way for a long time. Remember how He clothed Adam in his nakedness after he had screwed up the universe? Do you remember how He restored David after he had slept with another man’s wife and killed her husband?

Don’t overspiritualize your “ministry” job, and don’t underspiritualize your mundane job. Give God room to bring the sacred out of the secular, and He will.

rhythms that propel them out into the culture as kingdom representatives. They grow deep because they live their deep story together. You’ll notice that Jesus never walked alone. Heck, He was God incarnate, but He moved in the context of incarnational community. As the Father sent Him into the neighborhoods, Jesus took His friends with Him so they