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God-playing--an Avocation
God-playing is a much cherished but largely unrecognized occupation among us humans.
In the Urantia Book account of relationships between Jesus' and those who were originally John's disciples, we can sense that tensions existed relevant to status and priority.
A major source of contention was about who was qualified--privileged--to baptize. To have this authority was to possess a God-like authority to appear to forgive sin and to confer salvation. It made its possessor, special.
Probably Jesus' disciples felt themselves as being at a level above John's. Maybe, it was in compensation, John's disciples were granted the sole right to baptize new converts.
The exact wording of their baptismal ceremony is lost to us, but it is unlikely to have been very different from that of their dead leader.
John, the Baptist called upon the Jews to, "Repent and be baptized." Since large crowds flocked to John for baptism, the ceremony was probably very short and terse, something similar to, "Do you renounce the devil and all his works and do you repent of all your sins?"--followed by an "I do" response. Newcomers were then likely to have received a welcome into the kingdom.
Is it not a fact that we humans love to think of ourselves as being special--chosen ones? If it were not so, lots less of us would aspire to becomes priests, ministers, doctors, missionaries, nurses, faith healers, alternative medicine practitioners, or whatever occupation it is that permits us to become recipients of the everlasting gratitude of those upon whom we distribute our largess, in other words to become God-players.
The now commonly seen desire to save something from some threat or other, be it a threatened species of plant or animal, the environment, the children, the planet, or to have some some worthy cause for which one is prepared to die even, may really be a species of self-glorification tainted with the God-playing syndrome.
While, on the surface, God-playing endeavors may appear to both ourselves and others to be self-sacrificial and service orientated, the real truth is that deep down, our true motives tend to become contaminated by pride and self-glorification and hence graduate to God-playing.
God-playing and the pride associated with it is an ongoing trap. For once our motives become polluted and, in reality, we commence to value the glory of men, then that glory is its own reward. As such, our efforts have no spiritual value.
"Seek not, then, for false peace and transient joy but rather for the assurance of faith and the sureties of divine sonship which yield composure, contentment, and supreme joy in the spirit." (1674)
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