God's View of You
Do you think like God? Neither do I, but thinking the way God thinks is the means to self-love. If we are to obey Jesus’ command we must learn to love ourselves enough to get over our pride and insecurity so we can love and serve our neighbor. He also mandates that we work at our relationship with Him with all we have and the power He provides.
“For your thoughts are not my thoughts, neither are your ways my ways’ declares the Lord” (Is 55:8). He is infinite and I’m not, I get that. In fact I don’t want a God that I can fathom completely with the nerve bundle between my ears. But listen, He’s saying that if we think the way he thinks then our ways can be more like His ways. If I am going to love and serve my neighbor and my God as commanded, and if I want to accomplish it during this lifetime, I will need to think the way he thinks about me.
In the same passage He offers the method to attaining His thoughts; “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth, making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread to the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Is 55:10-11) So, we can know His thoughts as He communicates them in the bible and in response to our prayer. He provides the truth and the power to act on it.
Being transformed by the renewal of our minds requires effort, but not the striving we discussed earlier (see Will & Grace). The effort required is first to repent of self centeredness (even the righteous and humble looking forms of self centeredness). Next we must pray and set our minds on “the things of the Spirit” (Rm 8:5). This involves (1) acknowledging the counterfeit currency economy we have practiced in the past. It also involves (2) getting easy access to the truth. Just as a soldier keeps the tools of battle close at hand, we must be ready with the truth either in print or stored in memory. By refocusing on the truth we can (4) learn to trust the source of truth. Trusting allows us to (5) renounce our counterfeit system and accept God’s. Finally, we must (6) rely on the power of God’s Spirit to accomplish all this. Trying to impress Him by doing it on your own would be self-centered, now wouldn’t it?
Many years ago I went so far as to search the bible for 21 truths about God’s love and acceptance. I’d been told that it takes 21 days of consistent changed behavior for humans to form a new habit. I knew I needed a new way of thinking about me so I wrote the truths down on 21 cards and I carried one with me each day. I focused on one a day upon waking, and at each meal. Before bed I decided to read the truths I had focused on during previous days. So on day seven I had one truth to read four times per day and seven at bedtime. Even on day 21 when I read all of them before going to sleep I had invested no more than 20 minutes of my day. It was not the discipline or the time that made the difference, it was practicing the truth and trusting the source.
I would like to tell you that my feelings changed right away and my counterfeit currency system was bankrupted forever. The reality is that the feelings took a while to change. The change was inevitable because His word is truth and He promises that it will accomplish His purpose. He even promises joy and peace among the results (Is 55:12). There is comfort in the fact that the truth is not validated or preempted by feelings. By repeatedly submitting to God’s Spirit and asking Him to effect a change as I practiced the truth the feelings did come.
Until we shed our skin we will be susceptible to the self-worth economy we adopted when we were very young. In the same way that religion falsely teaches us how to manipulate God, this legalistic system teaches us to earn acceptance. So, it is easy to slip back into it particularly in times of great stress. When we falter we need only again renounce the lie and submit to the truth teller.
There is freedom in breaking away from the counterfeit self-worth offered by our legalistic systems. This freedom is not borne of finding a new price tag, but in the abolishment of the need for one. Our systems offer fleeting, conditional acceptance. God’s has provided agape, unrestricted love, unconditional acceptance.
When we feel the pressure to measure up or to earn our place we can focus on the truth that we no longer live in that economy. One can say, ‘I don’t need to measure up, I am loved, I am accepted. Will I reduce my efforts because of this? No. Now I am free to love and serve without the distraction’.
Jesus commanded that we love God with everything we got, and love our neighbors as ourselves. He gave the mandate and then made it possible by loving us unconditionally. Now I can agape me. Call it unconditional self-acceptance if you don’t like the term self-love. I’m still motivated, and now free, to grow and mature. Free to see my neighbor. Free to enjoy the giving and receiving in relationship. Free to give God the rightful throne, to be God-centered.
Being God-centered rather than self-centered won’t be a full time state of being for any of us this side of heaven. If the apostle Paul struggled with it as he confesses in Roman 7 then we certainly will. But hear this, there is a growing freedom, marked by increasing spans of contentment and quicker recovery time after relapse. Comfort I becoming the person God had in mind when he first thought of you (Eh 4:1). Not pretending to perfection, but comfortable being you. Knowing that you are accepted, that you bear God’s image in a unique, gifted, flawed, useful, joyful, and peaceful way.