Highlights from Chapter 3 – “How Do We Get Our Humanity Back?”

“The key to presence, then, is learning what it means to be not just a human but this human—the person God made you to be.” Montgomery, Daniel. How to Be Present in an Absent World (p. 28). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

“In 2016, Andrew Sullivan wrote a popular article for New York Magazine titled “I Used to Be a Human Being.”1 As someone who spent the better part of a decade in front of a computer, Sullivan laments the dehumanizing effect of “the web.”” Montgomery, Daniel. How to Be Present in an Absent World (p. 29). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

“As theologian Anthony Hoekema points out, the “image of God” can be read as both a noun and a verb.4 That is, the image is both something we are and something we do.” Montgomery, Daniel. How to Be Present in an Absent World (p. 31). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

“In downplaying Jesus’s humanity, we discount our own.” Montgomery, Daniel. How to Be Present in an Absent World (p. 34). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

“All of life,” he says, “is lived out of a sense of identity, even if one’s sense of identity is confused or unconscious.”10 Grace allows us to look honestly at ourselves and reorient our identities according to the truth of who God says we are.” Montgomery, Daniel. How to Be Present in an Absent World (p. 35). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Personal Reflection: I am challenged by the example of Jesus as the fulfillment of what it truly means to be human. I will only fulfill my own humanity by finding my identity in Him. Satan will do whatever he can to get me to find my identity in something else that ultimately will not satisfy and will cause me to settle for a lesser story. A key component to the ministry of preaching and teaching that I have been given is to bring people back to their true identity in Christ, so that they will be fully human in the way that God intends for them.