Recently we had someone over and as the night came to a close Angel warmly offered, “Let’s do this again soon!” I wilted as I processed just how many things were on our calendar in the coming month. Just like Angel did, I wanted to be with them again and soon, but her invitation made me flinch.

My wife Angel and I are very different people. Angel brings light and life everywhere. People are drawn to her, and she is drawn to people. One of the many things I love about Angel is how she gets caught up in a moment with people. In that space, it’s not unusual that she shares hopes with those we are with of spending more time together. And she means it: there is no doubt of her genuineness.

1. The uncarnation of Christ: J.A. Medders explains, “Our flesh and the devil are happy to uncarnate Christ—to reduce him to doctrinal points we affirm and then ignore him. But spiritual theology rejoices over Christ—his person and work—as our divine and personal Savior, Lord, and Friend.”

2. Looking at photos with my mum: Des Smith with a moving piece on aging and hope,  “But Scripture also tells me there’s something else going on inside Mum. I can’t see it, but it’s there. ‘Outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day’ (4:16). Somewhere in there, God tells me, there’s an invincible core; an iron spine of light that can’t be put out—that is growing in brightness.”

“I don’t compare myself with anybody, but nobody is better.” Michael Jordan

“They say the sky’s the limit, but I think my potential is beyond it.” Jay-Z

“I won’t be happy until I’m as famous as God” Madonna

“I won’t be a rock star. I will be a legend.” Freddie Mercury

“We’re more popular than Jesus now.” John Lennon

We tend to expect that greatest among us are also some of the most arrogant. And why wouldn’t they be? For many who make it to the top of their field, we can see how that arrogance can be a driving force for their greatness.

God became flesh.

Let that sink in. Christianity asserts that God—sovereign, immutable, omnipotent, other—the eternal God who has no beginning and end—became a human being.

 Because many of us have had exposure to Christianity from our early years, it is easy to miss how massive the theological implications of the incarnation are. The incarnation lays the groundwork for a God who chooses to participate in his creation. The incarnation denies the existence of an abstract and distant God, unmuddied by his handiwork.

1. Five things we’re missing the global church gets: Sean McConnell says, “Our theology may say one thing, but our behavior is often more focused on our work and our plans than God’s presence.”

2. What is the Devil’s part in temptation? Paul Tautges warns, “Just as he hounded Jesus all the way to the cross, so he never tires of tempting you. He’s always on the hunt, always waiting for an opportune time.”

“God did not, as the Bible says, create man in his own image; on the contrary, man created God in his own image.” Ludwig Feuerbach dropped this theological bombshell three years before Friedrich Nietzsche’s birth. Feuerbach, a name forgotten by most, but who influenced Nietzsche, wrote these words in his book, The Essence of Christianity (1841). He argued that human beings project their own attributes and desires onto an imagined deity, creating God in their own image. This for Feuerbach, is the essence of Christianity (and indeed all religions), the deification of our human ideals. “What man wishes to be, he makes his God… God is the outward projection of a man’s inward nature.”