Part 18 - The Privilege of Being You

Never break your heart trying to be someone else. In the first place, you never will be. You will always be you and no one else. The person who gets up in the morning will be the person who went to sleep the night before; so you might as well get reconciled to the fact that you are the person you are going to live with for the rest of your days.

In the second place, this is the way God wants it. He never intended that you should be anyone else, and He wants you to be the person that He intended you to be.

To understand this better, have you ever noticed the apparent contradiction in what Jesus says about yourself ? He said, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself." (Matthew 16: 24). It is quite evident from this statement that there is within each of us a self to be denied, a self to be rejected. On another occasion, however, Jesus said, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22; 39). If you are to love your neighbor as yourself, then you must first love yourself, or else love for your neighbor would become meaningless. It would appear therefore that there is a legitimate place for self-love. In addition to a self to be rejected, there must be a self to be respected.

How then is self-respect to be reconciled with self-rejection ? Can they coexist ? The self you must reject is the self that the flesh makes of you when the flesh is dominant within your soul, abusing and misusing your personality. The self you have the right to respect is the self that Christ makes of you, filling you with His Holy Spirit, enhancing and using your personality. There is most certainly a legitimate place for healthy self-respect as a Christian, but it is the self-respect that derives from your personal relationship with Jesus.

On this basis, you can learn to love the most unlovely of your neighbors, because you know that if there is anything you can love or respect about yourself, it is only what Christ has made of you. You know that what Christ has made of you, He can also make of him or her. You do not lose your own personality when, by faith, you take your place with Christ in death. On the contrary, a transformation takes place within your personality. You simply come under new management. This new life which has begun is, of course, the Life of the Lord Jesus, and your personality becomes His means of expression. He, as God, "is all the while effectually at work in you, energizing and creating in you the power and desire, both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight" (Philippians 2: 13, Amplified).

When you are prepared for the Lord Jesus Christ to get "in business" like that, you will not want to be anyone else ! You will be far too excited discovering what He intends you to be !

You died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3: 3.