DON'T BE YOURSELF

Fellow Christian-

There were a few times when I was growing up when I had to go to a new school, or youth group, or a week at summer camp and on those occasions I can remember feeling nervous about not fitting in. When that would happen, an adult, usually my Mom, would always give the same bit of advice- “Just be yourself.”

And by that, of course, they meant “You’re great just the way you are.”

And whereas that was not bad advice to give a young person on the first day of school, it would be a horrible statement to adopt as a governing principle for your life.

That is so because the Bible does not call us to just be ourselves, but to be like Jesus. And if you will hear it lovingly, fellow Christian, you are not fine the way you are if who you are doesn’t look a thing like Jesus.

Humanism, which is the dominant belief system in our culture today, elevates “Just be yourself” to an entire worldview. It posits that each individual is the arbiter of their own truth. Truth is personally derived and personally held. So the pursuit of truth, to the humanist, is the quest to be more authentically yourself. In his book “Counter Culture,” David Platt makes the following observation, “We live in a culture that assumes… if you were born with a desire it is essential to your nature to carry it out.”

But whereas humanism argues that truth is found within, Christianity makes the opposite claim that truth is found outside of ourselves, namely in God’s Word, and in the Word made flesh, who famously said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." So whereas, for the humanist, the pursuit of truth is the quest to become more authentically yourself, for the Christian the pursuit of truth is to become more authentically like Jesus.

It is this simultaneous rejection of self and embrace of Christ that permitted Paul, Hebrews of Hebrews that he was, to set aside his deep, personally held identity as a Jew to become a missionary to the Gentile peoples. After all, Jesus, who was God, became like a man in order to save men. So Paul who was a Jew became like a Gentile in order to save Gentiles. He wrote in1 Corinthians 9:22- "I have become all things to all people that by all means I might save some."

So we must understand the church in this way- we are a community of people who are committed to helping one another become more like Jesus. As fallen human beings we are all naturally full of disordered desires and misshapen longings, and, as Brett McCracken said in his book, Uncomfortable, "What we don’t need in this state are people who affirm us in our brokenness and urge us to continue just “being who we are.”

Fellow Christian, don't let me just be myself.

I beg you, help me be like Jesus.