Incarnational Formation: The Meaning of Human Life

It can be a powerful realization to understand God formed you in your mother’s womb. It seems this process was not a choice of our own, but of another. We are invited to a second realization that is initiated by choice. That is, to allow God to form us outside the womb. This spiritual formation is the meaning of human life from the womb to the tomb. The incarnation of the Word (God) becoming flesh begins the process in which we learn the miraculous birth of Christ, which was a real event, is to become a real event in us. This birthing of the Word of God through us is our participation with the divine nature by which we become what we were made to be. This is the meaning of being “born again”, which is connected to the process of “dying daily” to that which thwarts, distracts, or hinders from the Reality of our being and becoming a life-giving spirit. The Word made flesh exemplified this entire process from womb to tomb, by which we follow to become this life-giving spirit.

“What is sown a natural body; is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam (of the earth) became a living being”; the last Adam (the heavenly man) became a life-giving spirit.” - 1 Corinthians 15:44-45

Earthly life is a spiritual formation consisting of continual life and continual death from the womb to the tomb. This spiritual formation happens from within a life lived in a natural body that will be raised into a spiritual body. If we choose to follow this process we will understand the life/death cycle only gives way to perpetual life, which is the foundation of Reality in the One who made it. In other words, what we think of as “death” is swallowed up where there is no longer a sting in its misunderstood meaning. Death becomes understood as part of the transformation process by which the inferior fears and meanings of what death was is swallowed up in the indestructible, ever-renewing Reality of Life. (God) The Life of Jesus, the Word (God) made flesh, delivers us from the inferior meanings.

“Now since we have flesh and blood, God became flesh in Jesus to share in our humanity, so that by His death he would destroy the inferior power of dearth, that is what the devil means, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” - Hebrews 2:14-15

“When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”

O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?

The sting of death is sin (missing the meaning and Reality of Life), and the power of sin is the law (Guidelines in which we were to live “in the spirit of” in God, rather than the pressure of a law to obey as slaves fulfilling a list of requirements.) But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” (1 Corinthians 15:53-57)

Jesus Christ revealed the Way, Truth, and Life of Reality by which we learn and grow through this life in the body in order to become a life-giving spirit. Jesus revealed life and death was not what we thought it was, which kept people in bondage to sin and religious forms that missed the point. Jesus’ resurrection after completing the human journey revealed what we are to become. This life is a training in godliness, becoming like God, which was the process set forth from the Word in the beginning when God said, “Let us make humanity in our image and likeness.” (Genesis 1:26) 

“For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for ALL THINGS, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” - 1 Timothy 4:8

“Jesus became a priest, not on the basis of fleshly law requirements, but by the power of an indestructible life.” - Hebrews 7:16

The journey to becoming a life giving spirit is to recognize God is all in all. It is growing in God-likeness in a way that has value for ALL THINGS, rather than those things that hold little or no value for this life and the life to come. The Word made flesh in us and growing through us is the incarnational formation of the human journey to learn the power of an indestructible life, therefore, the life of God.

So look closely at the life Jesus exemplified for us with the entire story of God becoming flesh along with his death and resurrection that points to the Way, Truth, and Life we are in and a part of. His life was, and is, one of love and service to all. Once you see the meaning, you will never be the same, because you can now participate in the process of what will be made fully known at death, rather, at the transformation point in which we put on immortality. The key then is to practice immortality now. It’s to practice godliness now. It’s to participate with the Spirit of God so as to become a life-giving spirit both now and forever. 

God is Love.

God is Spirit.

God is Life.

Therefore your entire life (the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful) is the material in which we are taught who God is, who we are, and who we are becoming. It is in this sense that I say, not just on Christmas day, Merry Christ-mass! That is Christ in the mass of your body discovering you are hidden in Christ to become a life-giving spirit after Christ. Christmas then, is not just a holiday season, it is the entire season of your life on earth.

What a joyous reveal!

-PH

“My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.” - Galatians 4:19

“The mystery has now been known and made manifest, Christ is in you and the hope of your story!” - Colossians 1:26-27

“Born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth.” - Hark! the Herald Angels Sing