Practice Being God.

Reflections by Maxie Dunnam

Clement of Alexandria, one of the early church fathers, said all Christians should “practice being God.” When I first read that, it shocked me. Me? Practice being God? But the more I thought about it, the more gripping the idea became. Practice being God.

Don’t close your mind, thinking this is irreverent. Ponder for a moment. Paul was talking about this in his word about reconciliation? “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:18)

Do you see it? Paul said first, God reconciled us to himself… that’s what God does. Then…what are we to do? He has called us to do the same. Isn’t He talking about practicing being God?

Come at it in a slightly different way. When are we most like God? We are most like God when we are most like Christ. What is the first thought that comes to your mind when you consider being like Christ? By far, most of us would have love in our response to that question the question.

Paul said it well: “For the love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore, all have died. And He died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised.”(2 Cor. 5:14-15) What an encompassing statement! That means that since He has died for all, He has died for each. Christ loves like that, and we are to love as he loved. 

Whether we like the language, practice being God, or not, at the core of the Christian faith is loving. At the core of loving is forgiving. Forgiveness, then, is high on any list of Christian practice. As though as it may be, we can all forgive. Go from there and ponder other ways you can practice being God.