Facing Who We Really Are

WARNING: Sometimes TRUTH is UGLY, and if you can’t handle the truth in all of its raw-ugliness, you may not want to read past this point. Nothing is candy-coated or censored. You may wonder “Why am I writing this way?” These are things I can’t deny, and writing them out makes them visible. Plus, I can’t weasel my way out of it.

An integral part to our healing is facing who we really are, because until we face and acknowledge who we REALLY are, we can’t grow past those chains that are holding us back. Why? Do you have, or have you had, broken-relationships? I have had my “fair-share” and then some. Losing my middle daughter to cancer past year was a grim-reminder that I have been leaving carnage in my wake for over forty-years.

I thought I was “a pretty good guy“, but if you believe that lie, maybe you would like some real-estate I have for sale, which is as worthless as what I thought about myself. In reality, I have been a pretty self-centered-asshole for most of my adult life.

God, much to my chagrin, is answering my prayer for Him to clean-out those dark-recesses in my heart that aren’t pleasing to Him, and I don’t like what I am seeing. God has been opening doors to chambers that have been collecting-dust for over forty-years, chambers, chapters in my life, that I would rather forget. Be careful what you ask for, because you may not like what you get…

What if something I said to Connie shortly after we got married plagued her til the day she died and may have contributed to her demise? I had told her that “she couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket“. Did what I said make her feel “unworthy“, “less-than-adequate“? Connie has been gone since October 22, 1997, so I can’t turn-back the calendar and take-back those words. Yes, I was an arrogant-asshole. What if I really DO have blood on my hands, Connie’s blood? Words can kill…

What happens when a “virtue” becomes a “vice“? I grew-up poor, so taking good care of what was MINE, was a “celebrated-virtue“, but there are times when clinging to tightly to what is MINE is SELFISH. We really wouldn’t NEED that riding-lawnmower when we moved, but we took it anyway because my wife had bought and paid for it. Add SELFISH to my growing rogues-gallery. That is another dusty-chamber that hasn’t seen the light of day for almost forty-years. Been there, done that, and not proud of it.

Another one that hit me like a freight-train several years later was PRIDE. Aren’t Christians immune to pride? Doesn’t the indwelling of the Holy Spirit make self-obsession impossible? I wish the answer was “YES“, but sadly the true answer is a resounding “NO“. We aren’t immune to pride. In a previous piece, “Who Is YOUR “god”?, I mentioned a couple of things from my own life…times when I was self-obsessed…times when I was PROUD. My life would have been so much easier if God had decisively struck pride from my life, but He hasn’t.

“I wasn’t consciously proud. Maybe most proud people aren’t conscious of how proud they really are. But I felt that I had arrived. In ways that now shock and embarrass me, I thought of myself as a grace graduate. I didn’t minister out of my own need… In ways that are hard for me to imagine now, I thought I had spiritually arrived. I had a scary self-assurance.” (Paul Tripp, Dangerous Calling)

I remember an event from 1997 which shows just how deep my pride problem is. As I was leaving a 12-step meeting, a friend, who had been in many meetings with me, turned to me and said “Steve, you are the proudest person I have ever met.” Had he not inserted the “Steve“, I might have been able to wonder who he was talking to, but he left no doubt. Why was I PROUD? What did I have to be PROUD of? Was it because I was an ordained Elder in a conservative Presbyterian church? I was in a 12-step group…for sexual addiction. I had fallen to the lowest of the low…sexual addiction, and I was a porn addict on top of it. That wasn’t anything to be PROUD of, but PRIDE had obviously come through loud and clear from what I said in those meetings. I was stunned. I was a PROUD sinner.

What if the root-cause behind arrogance, pride, selfishness and self-centeredness is IDOLATRY? We are created to worship, and the problem is WHAT we worship. There is no such thing as an “atheist“, because even though atheists don’t acknowledge that there is a God, they have set themselves up as the “supreme-being” in place of God, so their “god” is themselves. I mentioned that pride is in direct opposition to God. Why? Because, when we are proud, we are telling God that we are more important than Him. If we are more important than God, we are placing ourselves in His place, and we are demoting the very God of the universe. We are making ourselves “god“. It is that plain and simple. God and pride don’t mix.

If you are beginning to wonder “Is this what it will be like to face God on the judgment-day?”, this is barely scratching the surface. God knows ALL the thoughts and attitudes BEHIND our words and actions, all those deep, dark, nooks and crannies that nobody else sees. In reality, we are far more polluted, far more sinful, than we have the capacity to realize. When Isaiah the prophet saw God in all His glory, he could only cry out:

“Woe is me, for I am undone!
Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King,
The LORD of hosts.” (Isaiah 6:5)

Who we are isn’t just about what we say and do, but it is also about who we are on the inside, our thoughts and attitudes, because our words and actions arise from our thoughts and attitudes. I was just reminded – again – that I have no room to judge anyone else. I received a call recently from a friend who told me something I was a bit surprised by, but shouldn’t be, because I have done the same thing. Why should I expect her to be any “better” than me? Just because her boyfriend got in her panties doesn’t mean that I never wanted to when she was my neighbor. I would be lying if I said that getting in her panties never crossed my mind, because it did, more than once. She’s a pretty cute gal. After all, I AM a man, and I am not dead yet, but she was more like my little-sister than someone I could be involved with romantically or sexually.

If you are thinking that this all sounds pretty harsh, you may need to be reminded of what Jeremiah 17:9 says; “The hearts is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?”(NKJV)

Is a rapist, pedophile, murder or abortionist really more “corrupt” than people who don’t do those things, or is that level of corruption ingrained in all of us? The verdict from Jeremiah 17:9 is that we are totally-corrupt. The ONLY difference is God’s restraining-grace.

Sin is a disease, and like its physical-disease analogues, it can’t be treated until it is diagnosed. Sin is soul-cancer, and like other forms of cancer, it may reappear at other times and in other places. I have a history of skin-cancer, and even though I haven’t had a skin-cancer in over five years, I can’t let my guard down. I HAVE to get checked every year, just in case, and those check-ups have to be thorough and all-inclusive. If it can’t be seen, it can’t be checked, so I can’t be bashful around my dermatologist. Yes, even “those” places need to be checked, because skin-cancer has the nasty-habit of showing-up in the most “unlikely” places. God is our soul-doctor and He sees EVERYTHING, whether we like it or not, but we have to be open to Him revealing what He sees. We can’t work with Him on what we don’t know about.

Circling back to the beginning: An integral part to our healing is facing who we really are, because until we face and acknowledge who we REALLY are, we can’t grow past those chains that are holding us back. Our healing from the cancer of sin is a life-long process, known as “sanctification”. In God’s redemption-economy, we are “justified”, made right with God, when we come to faith in Christ, but that doesn’t mean that we instantly sin-free, because we aren’t. “Positional-righteousness” is instantaneous, but “personal-righteousness”, becoming more and more like Christ, is a life-long process which won’t be complete until we take our last breath.

“This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” (1 Timothy 1:15) These words, written towards the end of Paul’s Apostolic ministry, were not reflecting back on his life before his conversion, but were based on his growing awareness of his own sinfulness. Paul, though an Apostle, had not “arrived”. As I look back on my own life, Paul was a “rank-amateur” by comparison. If he was “chief”, I am “pro-grade”, but with the “bad-news”, Paul gives us the GOOD NEWS, the GOSPEL; “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”, which means that He came to save me, and to save you.

How serious are you about becoming more like Christ?

Are you willing to embark on what may become an uncomfortable-journey?

Sola Deo Gloria!