Self deification is the worst possible form of idolatry.
Existing in the "Image" of Deity and/or in the "Likeness" of Deity is not intrinsically "being" Deity.
It is "mirroring" Deity, or "reflecting" the image of Deity, as the moon reflects the light of the Sun, but without light or heat of its own.
You are using "Spirit" and "Grace," as though they were a sister act... like "Diamond" and "Silk!"
All the cultish teachers and teachings that choose to believe they are "gods" suffer from either illusion or delusion.
Illusion is defined as the false interpretation of an external object or stimulus that exists in reality. Delusion is a false firm belief in something that is not factual, which persists even when the belief is proven to be false.
An illusion can be self corrected. A delusion is likely to be defined as a disorder of mind or personality in which there is impairment of mental or emotional components. It’s sometimes referred to as “insanity” or “lunacy.”
If humans had the capacity to be God, which we don't, Jesus would not have become incarnate, and come to earth, to pay in full our sin debt.
If we were Deity, i.e., Divinity, nothing we did, no move we made, would be sin, for we would determine the definition of sin.
The Bible would need not to have been written, for we would have all knowledge.
This belief is very similar to the New Age Theology of Unity Church, which came out of 19th century New Thought...
of which Phineas P. Quimby (1802–66) is usually cited as the earliest proponent. New Thought was a mind-healing movement that originated in the United States in the 19th century, based on religious and metaphysical (concerning the nature of ultimate reality) presuppositions.The diversity of views and styles of life represented in various New Thought groups are difficult to describe because of their variety.
Elements of New Thought may be traced to Platonism, based on the Idealism of the 5th–4th-century-bc Greek philosopher Plato, who held that the realm of ideas is more real than that of matter;
to Swedenborgianism, especially Swedenborg’s view that the material realm is one of effects whose causes are spiritual and whose purpose is divine;
to Hegelianism, based on the views of the 18th–19th-century German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel, especially those concerning the external world, mental phenomena, and the nervous organism as the meeting ground of the body and the mind;
to Orientalism, involving spiritual teachings of Eastern religions (e.g., Hinduism); and, particularly, to the Transcendentalism (a form of Idealism) of the 19th-century American philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Unity Church proclaims the divinity of Jesus, and also proclaims that we are all children of God and share that divine potential. Unity believes that Jesus "expressed" his divine potential, and that His mission consisted of showing others how to do the same. Unity recognizes Jesus as a master teacher of universal Truth who demonstrated the Way to this truth to others. Unity uses the term "Christ" to indicate the divinity in all people. Jesus is one of their examples of the Christ in expression.
Christian Science also derives from "New Thought," - not to be confused with New Age.
They are mistaken, and likely demonically deceived.
No one can become a child of God without first, of their own free will, kneeling at the base of Jesus' cross, in repentance, and acknowledgment of their grievous shortcomings, and with incredulous gratitude for this free unmerited gift of forgiveness now, guided and comforted by the indwelling Holy Spirit, and a future eternal life to be lived in God's presence, - all received through His grace, via the conduit of our faith.
rumitoid wrote:
It is not to rise above, deny, or attempt to overcome our human nature but to allow it to fully mature through love, to become what it already is, the image and likeness of God. This is our inheritance as a child of God. This is only possible by a complete surrender to Spirit and Grace.