Encouragement for 2021: Embrace and Embody Incarnation

One day, a very obvious truth occurred to me. We heal. We are made for it. Healing is happening all the time on a cellular level in our bodies, and usually we are unaware of it. 

When I started working at ONE (then Christ Healing Center), a friend expressed skepticism and questions about healing and whether God really healed people today. I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that we were debating a naturally occurring reality: we were made to heal by our Healer. 

I bleed when I'm cut, and then, thankfully, I heal. Healing is the default response of flesh. Healing happens every day, all day long. Healing, whether believed in or not, is a fundamental part of our makeup. 

Incarnation is no different. Like we were made to heal by our Healer, we are made to be filled with the presence of God by the Incarnated One: Jesus Christ. Our flesh was made to be incarnated. 

What is incarnation? 

Wikipedia says this: “Incarnation literally means embodied in flesh or taking on flesh.”

Embody—one of my favorite words! 

Flesh—one of my least favorite!

I imagine I’m not the only one who doesn’t jump for joy at the word “flesh.” Flesh can be gory. Flesh, more often than not, falls in a pejorative category. Dualistic thinking is all too common around this particular word. Dualism is the false idea that two basic and opposing principles account for all that exists. They compete and are opposite—for example: good vs. bad, spirit vs. flesh, God vs. Satan.—this is not a healthy or biblically accurate understanding of existence, but it’s an easy default that has influenced most of us today.

Jesus’s incarnation was a radical embrace of the very thing that has tripped us up: being a human in the flesh. 

There’s no one I’ve met who doesn’t struggle simply with being human, and few of us truly embrace and love our flesh. We shame ourselves by default. We are often addicted and dishonest. We hide the parts of ourselves that we are afraid won’t be loved by others. We have all the best intentions, but our follow-through is spotty at best. We are blinded by our fears and driven by our insecurities. We fear our own dreams and hold back our God-gifted strengths. 

Is it any wonder that dualism is an easy default way of thinking when it comes to us? Spirit = good, flesh = bad. Yet, the incarnation tells a different story. 

Jesus, the very Word of God, chose to become flesh and make our mortal flesh His very dwelling place—His tabernacle right in the heart of our humanity. If God deemed these fleshly temples to be tabernacle-able, perhaps we have misjudged the capacity that is simply built into being human. 

Ezekiel spoke to a reality that was to come, and his words help me reframe and even embrace the word flesh: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” 

The incarnation would have been impossible apart from God’s own value for the flesh. The One who masterfully made us now redeems our understanding of our own humanity. He did this 2000 years ago, and He deeply desires to redeem our humanity every single day.

Ask Jesus what story you've told yourself about your own flesh. 

Now go through that story line by line and ask Jesus what His true story is. 

Note the difference. 

You may feel weighty, like there are stones that need to be removed from your heart. 

Be honest about them and ask God to take each and every stone that has hampered the incarnated heartbeat of God in you and turn it to flesh. 

Incarnation means our flesh is redeemed, refreshed, and purposed for the Glory of God on the Earth. Your very skin and bones are not “bad” or “wrong” but redemptively full of the heartbeat of Heaven. What does it look like for us to believe it and live it? 2021 is ripe for embracing and embodying the incarnation of Jesus. It’s time for the children of God to live like they are of God, not of any lesser father.