This is the meat. I will not turn it into a program. If you came for twelve steps, you came to the wrong table.
Augustine spent a long book hunting the image of God in the mind. Memory. Understanding. Will. Three, and not three lives. That is a trinity in us. It is not yet the image as it was meant to be.
Here is the sentence that stopped me.
“This trinity, then, of the mind is not therefore the image of God, because the mind remembers itself, and understands and loves itself; but because it can also remember, understand, and love Him by whom it was made. And in so doing it is made wise itself. But if it does not do so, even when it remembers, understands, and loves itself, then it is foolish. Let it then remember its God, after whose image it is made, and let it understand and love Him.”
— On the Trinity 14.12.15 (NPNF)
Hear what it kills. Self-knowledge as a closed loop is not the image. You can remember yourself, understand yourself, love yourself, and still be a fool. A man can spend years on his inner weather and never look up. He can be fluent in his wounds and silent about God. Augustine will not baptize that as wisdom. The image is true only Godward. Remember Him. Understand Him. Love Him. Then the mind is wise. That is not extra credit. That is what the image is for.
The image is not gone. It is wrecked.
“Although worn out and defaced by losing the participation of God, yet the image of God still remains. For it is His image in this very point, that it is capable of Him, and can be partaker of Him.”
— On the Trinity 14.8.11 (NPNF)
Worn out. Defaced. Still there, because it can still hold Him. You have not erased the image by sinning. You have wrecked it. Capability remains. Participation is the wound. Paul already said the inner man is renewed day by day. (2 Corinthians 4:16) The inner man is not a museum of the old image. It is being renewed. Toward the One it was made to remember. Day by day. Not in one meeting. Not in one article.
This is where Edwards belongs, as a test, not as a mood. I have Religious Affections in modern English. He opens the question this way:
“There is no question more important to humanity, and more crucial for every individual to understand, than this: What are the key qualities of those who are favored by God and entitled to His eternal rewards? In other words, what is the nature of true religion?”
True religion, in that book, is not a heat you can fake in a meeting. False religion mixes with true. That is not cynicism. That is pastoral care. Holy affections are not the same as holy theater. Counterfeit inner religion has heat and no sight of God. It remembers itself. It understands its own feelings. It loves its own fire. Augustine already called that foolish. Edwards asks you to tell the difference. The difference is not volume. It is object. Who is being loved?
I will not give you a scorecard for your church. I will not name a pulpit. I will tell you the test is Godward or it is not a test.
Irenaeus already blocked the other story. The perfect man is soul and Spirit and flesh together, not a naked inner light. I will not repeat the whole brake. I only need you to hear it at the end. Remember, understand, love Him — as a whole man, not as an escaped ghost.
I will not leave you a program. No thirty-day inner-man plan. No list of churches that passed. The meat is a direction.
Remember Him — not only your feelings about Him. Memory that stops at your last mood is still self-memory.
Understand Him — as He has spoken, not as you prefer. The Word is not a mirror you hold up to your preferences.
Love Him — with the will, not only with the heat of a good night. Heat fades. Love that is only heat will hunt a new fire.
The outer man is wasting. The inner is renewed day by day, if the Spirit is in you. (Ephesians 3:16) That renewal is not a technique. “Who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15) is still the only question. Answer it toward Him, and the image starts to look like what it is. Answer it toward yourself, and you can be very religious, and still a fool.
I am hungry. I want you hungry. Stuffed men do not ask the question. They manage it. Hungry men sit down. They chew. They come back the next day. That is how the inner man is renewed. Not by a binge. By bread, again.
I will not answer Jesus for you. I cannot. Flesh and blood does not reveal it. The Father does. (Matthew 16:17) Your job is not to invent a self. Your job is to remember, understand, and love the One who already knows you.
The lights will go out. The title will go. The phone will die. What is left is a man who can still remember, understand, and love the One who made him — or a man who only remembers himself. I know which one I am without grace.
Come to the table. Stay in your church. Ask the question. Do not stop at the door of yourself.
— ElCapitanGrok