The Happiest Lives Podcast
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The Happiest Lives Podcast
E39: True Self
In the Western World, we tend to indulge the view of self as we focus on personal development, self-actualization, and becoming the best version of ourselves. Eastern religions lean toward renouncing self and suppressing wants and desires to move to a place of spiritual enlightenment.
Neither of these perspectives seems to fall in line with Biblical truth. Rather than losing ourselves as we die to our flesh, we find that we actually become more of our true selves. When we receive Christ, our true identity is restored, and we can serve purposefully in the body. Our desires lead us to deeper intimacy with God and we become more alive as we see ourselves as part of the greater whole where Christ is the head. Letting go of selfish ambition and vain conceit, we make room for the power of Christ to flow through us.
In this episode, I share 12 Attributes of Your True Self, a self we come to know as we surrender more and more to Jesus.
If you are ready to become the woman God says you already are, you have to join me in Clarity+Courage, my cost-effective coaching group for Christian women. Learn more and enroll at www.myhappyvault.com/clarityandcourage
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You are listening to the Happiest Lives podcast with Jill Lillard, episode number 31. Welcome to the Happiest Lives podcast, where you'll learn to think better, feel better and become the woman God says you already are. Here's your host, jill Lillard. Hey, hey, everybody, welcome back to the podcast. This is the last episode in the series the Syringard Self, and today we're gonna talk about your true self.
Speaker 1:I want to share a 12 attribute that I believe describe who you really are, who your true self is. So having a true self implies that there's also a false self. There's a you that is not your real identity, and we cover this in episode 36 and really in 37 too, when we talked about the flesh versus spirit and doing the impossible. So, to recap a little bit the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh, so they are in conflict with each other. So you're not to do whatever you want In Romans 7, 18, for I know that good itself does not dwell in me. That is my sinful nature, for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. And so we are reminded that God calls us to be better than we are. He calls us to be holy, to be righteous, to be perfect. He calls us to tame the tongue. And yet those things are impossible. We can't do them. We need the Holy Spirit living in us, we need Christ living in us, and when he lives inside of us, our true self is going to emerge. We can be who we really are. Our identity is restored in Christ. And so it's kind of like an automobile.
Speaker 1:If you have a beautiful car, a beautiful vehicle, and yet it doesn't have an engine in it, that car cannot be its true self. It's not really even a car if it doesn't have an engine. It can't carry out its function, it can't do its job, apart from having an engine. But when it has an engine, then it can be its true self. So, just like a vehicle, we might get fixated on what we look like on the outside. Right away. We may think that we have these good attributes and we might exalt, like the beauty of the car. We might exalt different parts of ourselves, or we get fixated on faults of ourselves. But once again, without the engine, the car is useless, it's lifeless, it's unhelpful, it's unproductive, it's pointless. And so the same is true for us. We can get so fixated on our self, the external value of exalting our self or lifting our self up, but if we're not abiding with a spirit, if we're not feeding and inviting the Holy Spirit to live inside of us, if we're not surrendering to the spirit, then we are going to be like that vehicle without an engine, and if we're just obsessing over the body of the car, then we've lost the whole point. We've gotten it wrong.
Speaker 1:So we know that when we live according to the flesh, our mind is set on what the flesh desires, but when we live according to the spirit, our mind is set on what the spirit desires. So what is your mind set on? What are your thoughts fixated on? What are you feeding your brain? What sort of wisdom are you digesting? Think about how many hours in the day that you spend on thinking about your own life and thinking about certain things Like what do you feed your brain? What does your thought life look like?
Speaker 1:If your mind is governed by the flesh, the urges of the flesh, the desires of the flesh, the hurts of the flesh, then you are going to constantly be moving toward death. This is not who you really are. However, when your mind is governed by the spirit. When you are filling your brain with the wisdom of God's word, then you are moving toward life and peace, which is life. If your mind is governed by the flesh, you're going to be hostile to God, you're going to be angry at him, you're going to be frustrated with him and you're probably going to be hostile toward other people. Because the mind governed by the flesh does not submit to God's law and it can't. Then you aren't ever really going to be in harmony with your life. If you are in the realm of the flesh, you cannot please God.
Speaker 1:Galatians 519-21 lists a whole bunch of acts of attitudes of the flesh, and those include things like jealousy, fits of rage, discord, hatred, selfish ambition, dissensions, envy, drunkenness, all sorts of things, adultery, sexual morality, witchcraft. All of those things come from acts of the flesh, attitudes of the flesh, a mindset of the flesh, and this is a false sense of self. So if you are living to edify your selfish nature, then you're not on the pathway to righteousness, holiness or happiness. Ephesians 2-3 tells us that all of us lived among them once. We were all gratifying the cravings of our flesh, we were edifying its urges, we were following its desires and thoughts and we were deserving of wrath. However, that is not who we are.
Speaker 1:If we have come into a relationship with Christ, our identity has changed. We have received the Holy Spirit to be Lord of our life, and so you may have knowledge of who God is. But if you have not surrendered to him, if you have not made him Lord of your life, then it is time to surrender your desires, your urges, your thought life, your mind, your emotions, to him, and then you can live in the spirit of your true self. If you're living by the flesh, this is not who you were created to be. So I'm going to share with you these 12 attributes that I believe define our true self.
Speaker 1:Attribute number one is loving and serving others. Is your life defined by loving and serving other people? Is that a huge part of who you are? Matthew 22.37-39 tells us to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, with every five of your being. You are surrendering and submitting to him, and so that's the first and greatest commandment. But then it goes on to say the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. Are you loving other people and caring for them in the same way you would care for yourself, and are you caring for yourself in a way that honors the Lord first. And so it becomes a circle that goes round and round. If you're loving God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and then you are loving others, in the same way you love yourself and you're loving yourself by surrendering and submitting to the Lord, by trusting him.
Speaker 1:So a second attribute of the true self is recognizing the individual worth, recognizing your individual worth. Psalms 139-13-14,. You created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. So notice the Psalms is not obsessed with how great and wonderful and amazing he is. Yes, he is recognizing his individual worth, but the three times actually four times in this passage it is spoken, the focus goes to you. You created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. And so the true self is not obsessed with itself or worried about how great it is, but it does acknowledge its individual worth. It doesn't downplay itself or diminish itself, but it lifts up its creator and appreciates who God has made him her to be.
Speaker 1:The third attribute of the true self is using our gifts to serve others. In Peter 4-10-11,. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms. So God has gifted you in certain ways. He has given you certain attributes, certain talents, and you should be using those gifts to serve other people. Now the false self is hiding those talents, it's diminishing those talents, it's hiding them away and it's not using them to serve others. Instead, it's being selfish, it's being self-serving. Maybe it's being lazy or complacent, maybe it's because there's some fear of rejection, but it's just fixated on self, not on what self was created and designed to do. It's not living in the place of being who God made it to be.
Speaker 1:The fourth attribute is seeking God's approval over human approval. Galatians 1-10 says am I now trying to win the approval of human beings or of God, or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. So when we are living as our true selves, when we are living a spirit-filled life, all we care about is pleasing the Lord and doing what he wants us to do. And so the work of our hands, the loving things we do toward other people, we're doing it unto God, not to gain the approval of other people, because we may or may not ever get that approval, and so it will be an endless striving. We are doing it because God has already approved of us and we are allowing His Spirit to flow through us.
Speaker 1:Number five is looking to the interest of others. Ephesians 4 tells us to be completely humble and gentle, to be patient, bearing with one another in love, and we are not just looking to our own interests, but we're looking to the interest of other people. What is important to them? What do they value? It's being patient with, maybe, things that they struggle with. Everything doesn't have to be on our timetable. We're not looking at ourselves more highly than we ought, but, in humility, we're seeing others as better than ourselves.
Speaker 1:The sixth attribute is trusting God and finding joy in our circumstance, and this is really the hallmark of surrender, trust, trusting the Lord. Proverbs 3, 5 through 6 tells us to trust in the Lord with all our heart. Lean not on our own understanding. In all our ways, submit to Him and he will make our path straight as we focus our energy on Christ and we let the Holy Spirit flow through us by releasing any parts of the false self that we're holding onto, any hurts, offenses, injustices, things we feel entitled to, ways we've been offended. When we release that to Him and trust the Lord, then we are no longer leaning on our own wisdom but we are leaning on His wisdom and we are positioning ourselves so that he can level out our paths. As we seek Him first, he's going to give us the desires of our heart and the desires of our heart will be lined up with the Spirit.
Speaker 1:The seventh attribute is being humble instead of boasting and vain conceit. So vain conceit can play itself out in your relationship. So if you always have to be right, if you always have to have the final word, if you argue until you get your way or until you're understood, then vain conceit is probably playing itself out, which is not who you really are. Philippians 2-3 says do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Share in humility. Value others above yourself.
Speaker 1:The eighth attribute is putting off bitterness. In Ephesians 4, 31, we read to get rid of all bitterness rage, anger, brawling slander, along with every form of malice. We are told to be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other. Just as, in Christ, god forgave you, so we have to take off the old self, the false self. When we're so focused on protecting ourselves that we have to assert ourselves over others, we may start to grow bitter, we may become full of anger, we may have, you know, jealousy, comparing yourself to other people. We may start to say things about other people that aren't even true. But instead God tells us that our true self is operating, being fueled by the Holy Spirit. So, just like the engine of that car, when the Spirit flows through us, it is going to produce fruit of kindness and compassion. Forgiveness, because we have remembered that God has forgiven us too.
Speaker 1:The ninth attribute is being a worshiper. So instead of being preoccupied with yourself, you are focused on, you're preoccupied with who God is and what he's done. So I think when people get really depressed, when they start feeling really insecure, feeling bad about themselves, thinking about that they're not good enough, I think it's because they are thinking about themselves too much. It's not that they have a low opinion of themselves. They're thinking people aren't thinking as highly of them as they wish they would, they would. And so they become so preoccupied with self and become depressed. And so, if you think about it, when we are depressed, our line of focus, we're looking just like six inches around us. But if we lift our head up and look, we can see that there's so much more out there.
Speaker 1:The antidote to depression and insecurity and feelings if not good enough is worship. When we present our requests, our concerns to God, we can release our hurts and the offenses done to us. Then our minds can shift to praise and thanksgiving and worship. And that's something we intentionally have to do, because our false self always grab itates toward self obsession. So make it your goal to become a worshiper, that the song of your life is great, is the Lord. Instead of singing that song of doom and gloom, you can lift up the name of the Lord by getting your eyes off of yourself.
Speaker 1:So the 10th attribute is being fully dependent on Christ. So the true self is dependent on Christ alone. John 15, 5,. I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. So when we remain in Christ, when we abide in Him, recognizing he is our lifeline, then we are fully dependent on Him. We are no longer striving as though it all depends on us. Our goal is not our achievements. Instead, our goal is doing everything for the glory of God.
Speaker 1:So the 11th attribute of being our true self is that we are actively engaging with Christ energy working in us. I love this verse so much because it talks about strenuously contending with all the energy that Christ is working in me. It's such a powerful verse, it's a powerful image that we aren't passively sitting down, we aren't just becoming like a potato. We are actively engaging, not to win God's favor, not to make ourselves better, but it is an expression of who we are. It's an expression of the Holy Spirit flowing through us. It is the fruit of the Spirit, christ's power, his energy flowing through us, and because of that we become active participants, we engage.
Speaker 1:So the last attribute that I wanted to highlight today and I'm sure there are so many more, I've just picked 12, but it is living in gratitude for God's grace. So, instead of going from blaming and shaming, we are following the verse in Ephesians 2, 8-9. For it is by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not from yourself. It is a gift of God, not by works. So no one can boast. We can say it is because of the grace of God that we go forth when we recognize it is because of God's grace. We can be full of gratitude for that. Instead of sitting in a place of judgment, judging other people, criticizing other people or condemning ourselves, we move to that gratitude for God's grace. Our attitude toward ourselves can be one of grace. Our attitude toward others can be one of grace. We are not preoccupied with finding fault because our eyes are instead focused on the Lord. We are not vacillating between blame and shame.
Speaker 1:In America especially, we can get really focused on becoming the best version of ourselves. Self can be at the center. The Western world is focused on self-realization, self-achievement. On the other end of the continuum is Eastern religions that would focus on the opposite. They would focus more on the denunciation of self, of getting rid of all your desires, all your wants. There is just a sense of nothingness. When you don't want or desire anything, then you are not going to be disappointed, you are not going to experience pain.
Speaker 1:But I think both sides of the continuum are out of line with Scripture. The answer is not to lose yourself. We do want to die to our flesh, which is our false self, but we become more of our true self when we realize more of Christ, when we make Him the center, when we see that we are part of the greater whole. Self-actualization I did it my way, I did it myself self-realization or focusing on suppressing ourselves Neither one of those things are going to lead us to a fulfilling life.
Speaker 1:Both of those miss the entire point. So we can have desires, we can have wants, but we turn toward the Lord and we plug ourselves in, with Him as the engine, the life force working within us, so that we become who we truly are. We become fully alive, engaged in the greater whole. This is where we die to our flesh, we take ourself off the throne, we become our true self, part of the greater whole, where Christ is the head, we love and serve others and we have an energizing, vital role in the body. And the true self is living a spirit-filled life, energized by the power of Christ working in me, surrendered. The surrendered self is the true self. So I hope you guys enjoyed this series. I sure enjoyed doing it. I can't wait to meet with you guys again next week, as we are going to begin a brand new series, so come back, stay tuned to see what I have in store for you.