It is always interesting to have someone tell you to “just be yourself”. How can you not be? I mean, think about it, who else would you be. The Irish writer, Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself, all of the others are taken”. Now, before you move on, think about what Wilde is saying. If you are like me, you spend a great deal of time in this world being someone else. In our society, when people ask us who we are, we very quickly respond with our label, what we do.
If we are not careful, this is how we see ourselves spiritually. There is no small number of churches and denominations that teach people that they are not good enough and never will be. Growing up, it was very common to hear: “you need to get right with God”. And in the context of the early religious teachings I had, it seemed to be important. That was the basic point of most of the revivals I ever went to. In fact, that version of evangelism is based on telling people what is wrong with them and how they must get “saved” to have any hope at all. The trouble is that they tell you what you are saved from but rarely tell you what you are saved to.
So, what are we saved to? What does saved even mean? The implied meaning is that we are being saved from ending up in Hell. But, is that really what we are being saved from? Why doesn’t the church teach what we are “saved” to (or for)? Is it possible that salvation is that moment when we realize that the Living God has been right there, inside of us, all of our lives? Perhaps we are being saved from ourselves?
For years, I was taught that every person has a “sin nature”. That we are sinners from birth, in need of salvation. What if that sinful nature is our own ego? Now, if that is what is really going on, then “take up your cross daily” means something important. It means that every day, we get to make a choice to do things our way or to do things God’s way. Suddenly, the “age of accountability” means something. We become accountable when we become aware that there is another way to be.
If you were to believe that you are “being saved” from yourself in order to follow a “more excellent way” then many things start to make sense. Isn’t this what Jesus did every time he healed someone? The woman “taken in adultery” was simply asked, where are those who condemn you? And the response came, “neither do I condemn you”. Maybe, just maybe, Jesus was the one Person that learned early that his ego was the great deceiver. Consider the temptation, at each point, Satan, offered Jesus the chance to do things “his way” rather than God’s. And it would make even more sense if we saw Satan as ego. The moment we do that, we understand all that Jesus gave up by being a human being on this earth.
And, once we give self up, we understand the more excellent way.
TMM