A Healthy Christian Self-Image (pt. 1)

“The Logical Song” was a ‘1970’s rock hit by the British band Supertramp. Its lyrics express a cynical view of modern education because it did not properly prepare young people to know who they are in this vast world. The lyrics are heartfelt and are personal. The singer begins by recalling a happy, innocent, and simple childhood, when he was playing outdoors. Life then was, “wonderful, a miracle, beautiful, magical.” But then the poor lad was hauled off to school to learn how to be “sensible, logical, responsible, practical, intellectual,” and, yes eventually, due to social conformity, “cynical.”

The main refrain expresses the central concern of the song as the singer recalls earlier days he had pondered the meaning of his life late into the night. It reads, “There are times when all the world's asleep, the questions run too deep for such a simple man. Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned. I know it sounds absurd, please tell me who I am.”

You know you are having an identity crisis when you have to ask, “Who am I?"

As one interpreter of the song online put it …  “In utter frustration, he hopes/prays that someone will intervene, and make his role in the universe make sense to him.” Very honest lyrics, indeed! That’s one reason they resonated with young listeners.

However, it is not just adolescents who are concerned with their identity! The World Trends Research Center posted an article on the web entitled “The Global Crisis of Identity.” The article argues that rapid immigration occurring all over the world along with the rapid changes in technology are mixing people and cultures together and at the same time cutting us off from our past. It reads, “Throughout history, peoples have been relatively separated, thus allowing them to develop culturally and socially in their own manner and at their own pace. Now, due to our global electronic information system, everyone is jammed into one cultural context—that of postmodern Europe and America. It’s creating personal, spiritual and cultural havoc that threatens the cohesion and social stability on which civilized life depends.”

The article also quotes Jacques Chirac former President of France admitting that even his country, with ardent zeal for French language and culture, is going through an identity crisis due to rapid immigration.

Add into the mix centuries of debate by philosophers who have attacked the certainty of any knowledge, and you have a postmodern society that cannot affirm any truth. The question the song raises is still valid: “Please, Please tell me what we’ve learned!”

Rene Descartes may have been excited over his discovery, “I Think: Therefore I Am!” but with all our modern advances it doesn’t say much for secular learning if they can’t even tell us who the “I Am” who exists - is! Are we cosmic accidents? Are we a long process of random mutations? Are we seed from an advanced civilization millions of light years away? Or are we entities at one with the universe? Nobody in the secular liberal worldview seems to know.

Self-identity is a momentous issue, both for those inside and outside the church. Self-esteem and self-image have become popular topics in the church and in counseling. Questions connected to self-image have been repeatedly raised: Is a low self-image good or unhealthy? Why do I have bad feelings about myself if I’m a Christian? Should we teach our children to feel good about themselves because God loves them or bad about themselves because their conscience is aware of their sinfulness? Should we mourn our depravity or celebrate our salvation? Does God accept humanity unconditionally? If He does, why is there a Hell – a place of total rejection?

Exacerbating the problem of identity, for over 100 years the broader church has been questioning the Bible -- the source of its certainty. Many church leaders now doubt that Scripture really expresses God’s mind on a subject or that it is historically reliable. In most pulpits today Scripture is not even well explained. All this has eroded the church’s confidence in its own identity in the world. By losing confidence in Scripture we have lost confidence in our identity as the people of God. Yet our identity is central to everything about us, for it answers fundamental questions like: What is our significance in this world? How should we feel about ourselves? How secure are we? What is our future? Who we know ourselves to be anchors every decision we make. Therefore, to have an identity crisis is a most unsettling and unstable experience!

Understandably this can be an uncomfortable subject to some people, but we need to know what a healthy self-image looks like.

1 Corinthians 4:1-4 is a great place to start.It is a Scripture passage meant to teach us how to think about ourselves. It does so by letting us see how a healthy Christian, Paul, thought about himself. In other words, it teaches a beautiful, biblical self-image, by learning the self-image of a beautiful Christian – Paul!

1 Corinthians 4:1-4 reads, “Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. In this case, moreover, it is required of stewards that one be found trustworthy^. But to me it is a very small thing that I may be examined by you, or by any human court; in fact, I do not even examine myself. For I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted; but the one who examines me is the Lord.”

Here is some straight talk from God! In the midst of all the confusing fog, this is a refreshing blast of wind to clear up our vision! Actually, there are a number of texts in the Bible which directly instruct believers how to think about themselves.

• Listen to God develop Israel’s self-image in Isaiah 41:8-9 "But you, Israel, My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, Descendant of Abraham My friend, You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called from its remotest parts and said to you, 'You are My servant, I have chosen you and not rejected you.” God didn’t intend there to be any confusion about Israel’s identity in the world.
  
  
• Now listen to Peter instruct the church about self-image in 1 Peter 2:9 “But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God's OWN POSSESSION.”
  
  
• John also zeroes in on self-identity for Christians in 1 John 3:2 with these simple words, “Now we are children of God.”
  
  
• Paul just a few verses before 1 Corinthians 4 wrote, in 3:16 “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”

Clearly, self-identity is something God wants you and I to know, and it is something we can know! In the next few blog posts, will see three insights from this text that provide Paul's thoughts as guides for our thoughts of self-identity.