Consider this: Christ was born in a manger to hide His true self, so that you could be born-again and reveal your true self. (Phil 2:7 and I John 4:17b). Am I just playing with words?
Christ is Emmanuel, God with us. He came to be with us to reveal The Father and His love for us. But would you consider with me something deeper than the Christmas story?
Christ came to be with us for more than just revealing our Heavenly Father. His purpose, of course, was more than to help us have a relationship at the mere level of acquaintance, i.e., to know about Him, sing about Him at church and be thankful. God’s eternal purpose was relationship at the deepest levels of intimacy? And what for?
Intimacy with God should always lead to intimacy with ourselves. That is, the more intimate I am with God, the more He can reveal to me how He sees me. Not to shame me, but so that I might share in greater grace and truth with Him.
He desires intimacy, but there is always one thing standing in the way of intimacy: my fear of being rejected because of how you see me.
We are not afraid of intimacy, actually. God wired us for intimacy. He made us to be relational creatures who thrive in intimacy. Thus, it’s not intimacy that we are afraid of. It’s being seen for who we are, and found out to be a flawed person. We hate to be seen and known as an ashamed mistake-maker.
Therefore, what if His great desire for intimacy with us must necessarily include the grace of self-revelation? For our intimacy with God to deepen He must reveal us more deeply to ourselves.
God wants to reveal me to myself, and to help me know myself as He knows me.
God knows my arrogance and vanity. He knows my diseased purposes and motivations. He knows what I do, and He also knows the flaws behind why I do what I do (Psalm 139:2). He knows what behaviors are driven by fear and anger, by pain and hurt.
But do I know this? Do I know all of this about me?
If I do not know my heart like God knows my heart, then I live in a measure of darkness. And the truth is not in me. I say that I have no sin and deceive myself (I Jn 1:8ab). I say it often. Especially when my wife calls out my sin. I argue back. I blame her. I blame some stranger who was in my way. I deflect and deny, or at least I minimize how bad my little, itty, bitty sin was. When I do this, I am saying that I have no sin; thus, I am self-deceived and the truth is not in me (I Jn 1:8c).
This is one good truth to remember about counseling couples: when one spouse blames the other one entirely, then that blaming spouse is violating I John 1:8. This spouse is saying, “I have no sin.”
Self-deception is our greatest block to intimacy with God and others.
What if one purpose for Christ coming to earth was —-after saving us from sin — He came to save us from our self-deception.
For me to grow in intimacy with God, I must grow in self-awareness. I must be intimately aware of my posing, false self, so that I can get the healing that I need. Out of that healing, I can live not as a shimmering sham, but as the “flawed saint” that I am.
And then I will be living in my true self.
Carter