Self-actualization, DEFINITION: the realization or fulfillment of one's talents and potentialities, especially considered as a drive or need present in everyone.

I recall when this term was in vogue, self-actualization. Though you don't hear this jargon spoken of much today in Christian circles, it is alive and well. It is the premise that all spirituality focuses on me reaching my Christian potential. 

I believed that the Kingdom of God was an internal, idiosyncratic experience for most of my Christian life. I surmised if I could practice Christian disciplines thoroughly enough, I would be mystically transformed and experience the Kingdom of God in my heart. Walla—righteous man of God.

It is fashionable today to dwindle following Jesus to an inner experience like the monks of old. And if you need fixing, you simply hire a spiritual coach. If that doesn’t work, there is always an online course where you can learn everything about anything spiritually.

God's purpose isn't to make us a MAN or WOMAN of God, fully actualized, having reached our super-maximum potential. God's goal is to make us like Jesus—self-expended. This doesn’t mean we lose the uniqueness and quirks of our personality that makes us so loveable and difficult to get along with. When we follow Jesus, it is not about what we gain; it is about the life of Christ that flows out of us like rivers of living water.

Jesus doesn't bid us, "Come and be self-actualized spiritually, reaching the zenith of human righteousness." Jesus bids us come and die to ourselves, lose our life, and gain His.

Let me leave you with a serious question to ponder. The demands of the Kingdom of Heaven point to one position in life, childlikeness. When we perfectly relate to Jesus, it is through the actual life of a child, simple and free from self-consciousness.

What if God's purpose for us is to grow and be "deformed" to the image of a child? How does that set with the continual accumulation of spiritual knowledge, sophistication of life, and honing our ever-expanding giftedness? Which is it in the Kingdom of Heaven, self-actualization or anti-self-actualization?