Telling Ourselves the Truth about Who We Are
The Apostle Paul grew in self-awareness and understanding throughout his Christian journey.
1.) Early on, before his encounter with Christ on the Damascus Rd. – Paul (known as Saul, before his conversion) considered himself a “righteous” man, a committed Jew, whose responsibility it was to hunt down and destroy followers of Christ, whom he believed were blasphemers against God. He believed he had lived his life with a perfectly good conscience before God and identifies himself as a Pharisee. He participated in the stoning death of Stephen, the disciple, who was the first person martyred for Christ. Acts 7:54-8:3, Acts 23:1, 6
2.) After Christ appeared to him on the Damascus Rd., changing his name from Saul to Paul, and opening his eyes to the truth of the gospel, Paul’s opinion of himself was that he was entitled to be among the “apostles” because he had seen Jesus personally and, even so, he called himself “the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle” (and yet he had gone to James and the apostles in Jerusalem explicitly to make his case for exactly that.) Acts 23, 26, Philippians 3:4-6, 1 Cor. 15:9
3.) Later in Paul’s journey, he has an even more realistic view of himself, realizing that, among ALL believers in Christ (referred to as “the saints”), he is the very least among believers. Ephesians 3:8.
4.) Toward the end of his life, in correspondence with his son in the faith, Timothy, he is most realistic and honest of all about himself when he proclaims, “I am the chief of all sinners.” 1 Timothy 1:15
Paul had learned, like we must also, that we are not good in and of ourselves. Nor are we good based on things we’ve done or the people with whom we associate or the jobs we do. Also, we cannot compare ourselves to others and attempt to find ourselves more worthy. The only standard of comparison is the standard of Jesus Christ himself. And when we stand in that truth, we come to see who we really are……sinners in need of a savior, in fact, in our brokenness and realistic view of ourselves we see that we are the ones most in need of Christ’s saving work.
The heart is, above all things deceitful, particularly in its self-assessment. Only as one’s heart is made anew can she see the truth of who she was as she becomes what God purposed her to be. I stand in newness of life and look to the day when all things will have become new in Christ’s completed work of redemption as it is being revealed day by day.
I think I might have first been introduced to this self-awareness in Paul’s life in a study done by Dr. David Jeremiah years ago. It had a considerable reflective impact on me and I use it with my discipleship students. It has a way a deflating our self-righteous religious egos and bringing us back to the foot of the throne of Christ, if not all the way back to the foot of the His cross.
For years after my life was renewed in Christ at 38, I came to the altar at communion feeling shattered again by the awareness of my sins and repentant as each one had light shown on it. Eventually, one day as I knelt again in a sense of brokenness I asked God, “Will communion always be this painful and needfully purgative?” In that instant I felt a warm fluid flow, like the consistency of honey or the viscosity of a thickening gravy or syrup that a cook knows as “coating the spoon” from the top of my head, slowly down my shoulders, trunk front and back, arms, thighs, calves, and feet. I felt and saw the words “wet clay” impressed on my brain’s frontal lobe and I heard the Lord speak in my spirit, “You have learned obedience.” Communion since that time has been filled with gratitude and anticipation for Christ’s continued refining work instead of grief-stricken brokenness. I think I moved from kneeling again and again in sorrow at the foot of the cross to kneeling in humble joy for all His atoning work on my behalf in worship at the foot of His throne. It was a turning point in my healing and in my response to God in everything about my life. In that moment I came to know myself as a beloved daughter of the Great High King, anointed and given all I needed to be what He was re-creating me to be.