Do you know anybody who really knows themselves? We know ourselves a little better every few years. But each time we master a thing, or achieve a new position, something new pops up and we start the climb all over again. Perhaps, when you are over 70 it is more easily observed. You know, when we are like some of those old people who don’t take off their shoes for airport security.
Many agree there are three useful ways to look at ourselves. First, we are naturally created with a capacity to reason and make judgments. Second, we function with yearnings having a need to give and receive passion. And thirdly, we have the will to do or not to do, to love or not to love. We have the capacity to endure, make a difference, or couch in front of the TV.
These functions are all integrated into an overlapping array, our thinking, our feelings and our will to do. We can focus on one, say thinking, but it is also influenced by prejudicial feelings and values. The complexity of our diverseness is difficult to understand, let alone master. But there is a way!
When we consider the intricacy of our own body, not to mention the mystery of life itself, isn’t it reasonable to place ourselves in the hands of our original designer? He planned the totality of what we know and understand? Existence itself is under His control? Ultimately, we are under His mercy anyway!
He is a Spirit and there is a spiritual answer to our identity and purpose. It is not an answer devised by man, our quest is love based, divine love. It is already designed into our totality.
It requires choices. Love is about choices and choices is about knowledge. If our knowledge is not complete, our love choices are less than they should be!
We are less than created because we broke our creator’s rules. Continually we reach out looking for what we lost not knowing what it is.
God’s response to what He created was, “It is very good”, Gen. 1:31. Expelled from “the garden”, we have been looking for a way back. We are compelled to return to “paradise”, the place we were created. We continually seek, choosing our own path back not risking it to others.
Meanwhile our creator, watching, purchased our redemption, waits to give life back to us. He reconciled Himself to us but we are refusing to reconcile ourselves back to Him.
Is there anything quite so powerful or sensitive as unrequited love? Yet, this is what we are dealing with. Even though we turn our back on Him, He does not reject us. Flaunting Him who changes water into wine, draught into floods, nothing into something is so human and so foolish!
We were formed and birthed in exalted love but God’s love was bigger than our failure, our sin. It is a lesson revealing the flaws of self and the immensity of the One who created life and its environment.
There are two kinds of people. Those who acquire knowledge through the love of their creator and those who rely on the things He made. Either way, we are within God’s domain. We either live in Him or we die without Him. Ours is given to choose.
The secret to knowing self is knowing Him who birthed us out of His love. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”, Romans 5:8. Our ability to access God’s truth comes out of entering into Him. Our inner self is exposed in Christ. His Spirit within us feeds our mind with His Word if we open it to Him.
The problem in knowing ourselves is our reliance on flawed human resources. We have mastered our identity on temporal things, things resting upon reason and observable events. It is very difficult leaving this very tangible comfort for unseen things, things that are eternal. Absolute truth exists, invisible to the natural eye and heart, but available in Christ.
We always begin our journey from a human point of view. We tend to limit knowledge through reason. We organize observations in our experience. It is an egocentric process biased against threatening things like faith. This self reliance is our soul’s character and the antithesis of God’s spiritual economy in Christ.
Sometimes it takes years of living in the Spirit before we start walking in the Spirit. But when we do, things start to happen. The unseen becomes visible with spiritual eyes received in Christ. We acquire the ability to see ourselves within an eternal point of view.
We have to change our perspective from a world view to an eternal view. A believer enters into God’s eternal spiritual economy. The empirical nature of faith becomes real as eternal spirituality becomes our experience. Grace starts having tangible meaning. We begin to see exactly who we are because we are able to be who we are intended to be … and we can understand the difference! Knowing who we are is more and more visible as we are accept ourselves and be who we are intended to be.
This can sound a little mystic especially to the natural ear. How do we actually experience the completeness, the joy, being at rest, complete as a person, the person we were designed to be! I’m glad you asked!!
DRILL DOWN!
God has provided everything we need to be who we are intended to be. It starts with knowing God Himself. Jesus was God manifested in the flesh. He provides us personal access to God enabling us to have knowledge of ourselves in the context of eternality.
Our knowledge of ourselves comes out of His love which He lavishly pours into our hearts when we are justified by faith. The linkage between love and knowledge should be apparent. We are talking about αγαπη (agape) love, divine love that is pure, transparent, righteous, fully dedicated to our completeness and well being. Knowledge is an inherent component part of knowing our lover in a full, meaningful way.
Love is the answer but love is grown where the soil is fertile. This means we must take His grace given to us and fill ourselves with the knowledge He puts into our trust through His word. This is what we mean by drilling down. Understand what His word means and submit ourselves to it so that His indwelling Holy Spirit can give us meaning in practical daily experience.
“We need to get into the word so the word can get into us”.
“So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God”, Rom. 10:17.
“…receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” - James 1:21.
“Let my cry come before you, O Lord; give me understanding according to your word!” - Psalm 119:169.
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”- Psalm 119:11.
“… If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” - John 8:31b-32.
“Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O Lord, God of hosts.” - Jeremiah 15:16.
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thanksgiving in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” - Colossians 3:16-17.
“but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him:” – 1 John 2:5
“since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;” – 1 Peter 1:23
“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.” –Hebrews 4:12-13.
“By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and be the breath of his mouth all their host.” – Psalm 33:6.
We have the mind of Christ, 1Cor 2:16. This is our source of knowing.