false self

I am still trying to figure out this whole false self/true self thing and put it into my own words. I want to be able to explain it to myself and attempt to explain it to a few friends and maybe even teach about it someday in a way that is less ethereal and confusing.

The false self is the part of us that is the old man, our sin nature, the part of us that everyone is born into. However, it does not stay locked up neatly away in a corner of ourselves, it instead pervades everything. It interprets everything in relation to itself. If a circumstance is hard or scary -- it works very hard at protecting us and telling us that we are going to be alright if we just believe this or that (usually a lie) about ourselves. It tells us the lies that we want to hear to make ourselves feel better and cope with the world. So even if something happens that's good ... we will also interpret it in this self-centered, self-affirming way. We can not help this. There is nothing we can do to stop this, this is just what happens when we are born into sin. Everything is made relative to me, because my false self just believes that indeed, all of life revolves around me, and it can believe nothing else. The really great thing is - we all believe this - and so we all join into this great big cult affirming each others lies. We bring our lies - everyone brings theirs and we all lie together affirming what we believe to be the truth. Except the 'truth' that we believe is just the false self trying to convince itself that it is completely fine. And because the false self is similar in each of us - totally self-focused - the lies line up much of the time! So it seems true... and we keep giving the false self more and more power over ourselves. It is incredibly pervasive and reaches into all corners of who we are and who we are becoming ... and even the church jumps on its bandwagon much of the time. Because my false self can make my churchiness or my church related activities about me and my own gain and my own glory. In fact, it is really hard to tell sometimes where my false self begins and where my true self breaks off especially in regards to ministry activities. The false self is really all about self protection. It is about gaining for self, it is about getting whatever will make me happy. This is the space that our idols are born into. This is the space where our inner Adam says 'no' to God and says 'yes' to itself. This is why I want to be seen and heard and noticed. This is where I steal God's story and make it all about me. This is where I decide that all the glory should be shining from me but most especially for me.

This may not sound new. I know I have taken a hard look at my sin nature. I have done a ton of self examination ... actually probably more than I should... probably to the point of it falling back into the prideful category and made it all about my false self again. So what is the point of reexamining it now? For me its about learning it from a slightly new angle ... I am beginning to look at my false self from the vantage point of my true self. Before now, I would have seen this false self and thought that much of it was good and redeemable. I would not have been able to see that the whole of it is steeped in such a big lie that no part of it can come out whole. I also would never have been able to see that all of the false self - everything that it is and has created as my outer person, is actually NONE of who I really am. This is not the real me. It is a shadow. A very dim and twisted picture of only part of who we were designed to be in the image of God.

So if this is NOT who I am - this false self - then what can be done about it? How do we get rid of it? How do we become our true selves? That's the really great news ... that our true self is already with us. Not only are we born with our sin nature but we are born with our true selves because we were created in the image of God. This person that God created us to be IS our true self ... its just that when we are born, the false self covers over our true self because thats all it know how to do to live. It is only when we are born again into salvation that our true self has an opportunity to come out from behind the mask of the false self. Until then it really has no power over the sin nature. This is the whole reason for Gods entire salvation story. He created us so that He would have someone in His image to spend His love on ... but He wanted us to want Him and not just be robots. But we chose the wrong path - we chose ourselves as gods - and pushed aside the One True God. As we did that the false self was born. And we saw Adam and Eve shift blame to one another, to Satan, and to God for the problem - of course not wanting to blame themselves. This is the false self at its best - always working at self-protection. So we get to watch thousands of years unfold in scripture as God works out His salvation plan - so that He might be reunited with His loved ones. Though he has never lost sight of who we are and has never stopped loving us with His magnificent love - we lost sight of Him because we lost sight of who we were designed to be. So thus we never got to have the love relationship we are designed to have ... until Jesus came along. In Jesus we once again have access to the true self because sin and shame were killed on the cross. God's wrath was poured out on Jesus and the Holy Spirit was sent to unite His followers to Himself in a divine union. So those who have the Holy Spirit have this divine union already in us.

 The question is why don't I know this, feel this, experience this? This is the question I have been asking for years! How does transformation actually occur? How do I shed sin and live more fully walking in the power of the Holy Spirit? That's what this true self begins to answer....