12/12/2025
Are you an individual? Do you see your spiritual and physical selves as being unique and independent of one another? How about your personality? In fact, our physical being is what we are, and our spiritual self is who we are. So it is that as physical individuals we are referring to our bodies, and although they are alike in many ways, God has made them unique. Our personalities, on the other hand, are experienced more than seen, and are boundless in their nature such that only God can truly understand them. When Jesus speaks in John 17:22-23, which of these is he referring to?
“The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”
John 17:22-23 ESV
Jesus didn’t physically look like God, but He certainly felt, acted, and reacted like Him. Jesus was physically individual, but personally or spiritually He was one with God. This is how God wishes to interact with us... not so much bodily as individuals, but spiritually as personalities.
“But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
John 4:23-24 ESV
When I was a young man and my wife was expecting our first child, I was incredibly happy and expectant of all that fatherhood would be, but I was also afraid. Would Ann physically be able to give birth, would the child be physically and mentally sound, but most of all... would I be a good father, teacher, and provider?
At that time I was working with an older man who was about to retire. He had taken me under his wing and we had developed a deep personal relationship, so I confided my fear in him. After I had told him of my fears, he leaned back in his chair and began to tell me a story. This is what he said:
“Rich, I know a doctor who lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee and he and his wife have identical twin sons. Each of these boys was physically like the other in every way and had identical genetic makeups; each had the same parents, were raised the same way, went to the same schools, ate the same foods, and in every way had the same advantages. Today, one of those boys is a doctor like his father, and the other is in prison. So, ask yourself, where did this mother and father fail?” I sat pondering this dilemma for a moment before he continued, “They didn’t fail. We do the absolute best we can, but in the end the child must stand on its own. It is up to the child to make the right choices in life using those things we have imparted to them.”
My friend was incredibly wise and had given me much wisdom over the years that we knew each other, but this particular story has been at the forefront of my memory of him and I have employed it in many ways throughout my life. In faith I realize that although we are physically similar in many ways, God deals with us in our most diverse nature... our spirit and personality, and this is where we must take our instruction in the Written Word of God and make the choices that will carry us forward. We may have two eyes, one eye, or be totally blind, but despite those physical traits our spirit views the world in infinite ways. This is the realm of God, and in this way we he has given us the ability to see His glory... He is infinitely diverse.
Pastor Oswald Chambers used the example of an island when defining the difference between the physical individual, spirit, and personality. Listen to what he wrote...
“Personality is like an island, we know nothing about the great depths underneath, consequently we cannot estimate ourselves... there is only one Being Who understands us, and that is our creator.” - Oswald Chambers
So, in other words, physically God has made us similar, and in these features we can easily see our individuality, but in personality we are deep and unfathomable to ourselves, and we can barely scratch its surface... this is where God wishes to provide us with His glory, and to make us one with each other, with Jesus, and with Himself.
So, despite our physical perfections, and imperfections, our mental advantages, and disadvantages, or our spiritual strengths and weaknesses, we each are meant to choose how we will see Him, experience Him, and accept His glory. In this way He desires us to be one with Him... but are we making the right choices? Or are we blaming our failures on the world, someone in it, or even our Holy Father? Are we leaning on our worldly and bodily disadvantages and using them as excuses for our lack of oneness with God? If we are failing in our relationship with Jesus Christ, and God, it is time to strip away our claim to personal individuality and drop to our knees spiritually in unifying prayer. God is waiting in all His glory to join with us there.
“I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."”
John 17:26 ESV
Prayer:
Father, thank you for who I am physically, but thank you much more for the spiritual person I am now, and who I am becoming. Thank you for your Holy Word and Spirit which are shaping my personality and healing me in ways that only you can see entirely, and I can know in part. I long to be one with your Son Jesus Christ, and in this way to be one with you. Give me your glory Father, so that I can realize this oneness, and feel the Love you are. Let no physical or mental ailment, nor disadvantage in life, keep me from seeing you, and experiencing your guiding hand. Help me to claim responsibility for my own failures, and to overcome them by leaning on you and seeking you more diligently. Meet me in my prayer closet and impart your wisdom to me. Let my choices be good ones and lead me in the ways of righteousness for your name’s sake. Lift me up Father and bring me to where you are. In all these things I will praise you, and in these things I will come to know that we are just beginning our journey together. Lord, take the boundless nature of who I am spiritually and join it completely with you. Abba, let your will and desire be mine; now and forevermore.
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”
Proverbs 3:5-6 KJV
Amen, Amen, Amen!
Rich Forbes