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Choose to Be True to Yourself

“What makes you you?” Is it what you believe or what you say or how you behave? As soon as you identify one of those things, your own heart is likely to condemn you in the other areas. We need to be integrated. Our faith must shape our conscience, influence our speech and control our behaviour. What does it mean to be true to yourself?

In Romans 14 we read about matters of conscience regarding food and the observance of special days. In this context, Paul writes: “Let each be fully convinced in his own mind... For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” (Romans 14:5 and 8) When Paul tells each to be fully convinced in his own mind, he underscores that faith needs to shape our conscience. We have liberty in many areas. Some of us struggle to live in grace. We’d prefer to live by rules, but God has invited us to live in relationship with Him, not by rules.

Back in Acts 15 there is a stunning little verse where we read of the apostles writing a letter to the believers in Antioch. In verse 28 we read: “For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements” (Acts 15:28) and then they outlined three restrictions for the believers to follow.

Just three areas in which the Holy Spirit and the apostles deemed specific restrictions necessary? This disturbs us because it seems to leave a lot of room for conscience. But the fact is we have a lot of latitude. The condition is, we need to be fully convinced in our own mind, because if we are not acting out of faith we sin against our conscience, acting against what we believe. God wants us to be true to ourselves. It’s shocking that we have that kind of freedom, isn’t it? Just don't violate your conscience as you enjoy it!

Next let’s look at an idea we find in 2 Corinthians 4. Paul quotes from Psalm 116 as he writes: “since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke," we also believe and therefore speak, knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you.”

What I see here from Paul’s example is that we need to speak out of what we believe. What we say when we are all together, should affect how we speak in all contexts. We often have one way of speaking when we are in inside the church and another way of speaking in the marketplace, the workplace, the educational place, even at the old home place. Yet Paul challenges us to be consistent and to let our words reflect what we really believe to be true. Our faith needs to influence the words we say and the way we say them on a consistent basis.

Finally we'll go to James 4:17 where we read that “to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.” We all have different gifts, different interests, different strengths. We may approach the same situation from different perspectives. Take a need in the community, for example. Two dedicated Christians might react very differently. We shouldn’t let the difference between the approaches hinder us from responding to the need. If you know that action is called for, act. If you don’t act, you are being inconsistent and sinning against yourself.

The Lord Jesus was a man of action. He was always doing things. He never made a mistake. He never got even slightly off track. He was God. He knew the mind of God perfectly. We run some risk because of our human limitations. But just because our perceptions may be distorted doesn’t mean we should stop acting, given the light we have. In terms of being true to yourself we need to live out our lives according to what we value, what we believe.

In these times of economic pressure, we will learn things about ourselves. Under stress, we always work out of our deepest inner values - our core beliefs, if you like. Will some Christians abandon their principles to stay afloat during these difficult days? Or will they let go of other things so they can maintain their fellowship with their God? It is easy to say we believe all the right things, but sometimes our actions betray us.

This is why I started with the question: “What makes you you?” Is it what you believe or what you say or what you do? We’ve seen that consistency is called for. We need to be true to ourselves. We must let our faith shape our conscience, not allowing the world’s value system to have inappropriate influence. We must let our faith restrain our speech, because of the many other influences which prompt us to say things which would make a mockery of what we confess we believe. We must let our faith direct our behaviour, so as not to fall into sin either of omission or commission.

Ron Hughes
© April 2009