Know Thyself...
- White Stone
- 5 hours ago
- 13 min read
God wants us to know Him. God has placed a desire in our hearts to know
him. We are uniquely made to give the Holy Spirit sanction to search our
heart. Knowing God is a profound privilege. And the only way we can know
ourselves is to know God’s Son. God wants us to be secure in His love and
in ourselves. And it is by the Holy Spirit that we have a deep sense of self
before the Father. The Holy Spirit uses the scriptures to be our spiritual
telescope with which we can look deeply into ourselves. The scripture is a
series of narratives disclosing the relationships between God and His
people. It is for us to discern what the implications are for us, and then to
listen to what is for us and how we should respond. The scriptures were not
only written to us, but they were also certainly written for us. We are to know
what the Father has given us to do as did Jesus. We are individuals, uniquely
important to God and His purposes for the world. Consider God’s creative
work in us up to the present. We are to know who we are in our true self. And
we are to know the living God. God has made us as whole people in His
image. That image includes physical, spiritual, emotional, intellectual and
social dimensions. We are to become holy in character, become like Christ.
Everything is valuable for the purpose it serves. Nothing is valuable by itself,
except the one content of everything which we call the Omnipresence of the
Lord. And we cost God everything. That is the only thing that is important by
itself. All the other things are valuable for the purpose they serve and any
purpose is valuable only when it serves the purpose of God-awakening in
us. The value to God of his people knowing themselves is that it allows for a
deeper relationship with Him, as understanding one's own strengths,
weaknesses, and motivations enables a more authentic approach to faith,
leading to greater humility, repentance, and personal growth, ultimately
reflecting a closer connection to God's love and grace; essentially, "knowing
yourself" is seen as a key step towards "knowing God”. Herein is the
reasoning to recognizing the potential for self-deception as it highlights the
need to seek God's wisdom in understanding ourselves. It is how we are to
examine ourselves, to know whether we be in the faith; able to prove our
own selves as not just us how that Jesus Christ is in us. We say self must
die. Self-dying is not a final act. It is coming to self-knowledge.
Understanding our own awareness, thoughts, beliefs, assessments, our
merits, and behaviors as they are to reveal Christ working in us. It's about
discovering ourselves in God. Our identity should never be based on a hope
or a guess. God gave us His Word, the bible, so we can know Him and know
who He is making us to be in Him. God’s word should fulfill our consciences
so as to associate self-discovery, self-expression, and self-actualization.
There is purpose to God wanting His people to know who they are. Having
self-awareness gives us the power to influence outcomes by our choices;
helps us become better decision-makers and gives us more self-confidence.
We can communicate with clarity and intention, which allows us to
understand things from multiple perspectives. It frees us from assumptions
and biases and makes truth the only thing spoken in love, helping us make
spiritual sense of our experiences. We earnestly study to understand
ourselves within a larger context of just being. This involves practices like
meditation, mindfulness, connecting with nature, and examining our
significance to discern our deeper purpose and connection to something
beyond ourself, allowing us to live more faithfully and with greater meaning
as we give full attention to every present moment without judgment. Reliance
upon our spiritual senses; the conscience, which is an inherent sense of right
and wrong; intuition, a sense of God’s revelation, knowledge, and wisdom;
and communion, a sense of God’s presence, orients us to that higher
purpose or significance, that connection, that “something” that gives us a
higher perception of reality. Our expressions are honest and sincere while
reflecting kindness and compassion, essentially conveying important
information while maintaining a caring and respectful attitude towards others,
signifying a genuine connection built on both uprightness and empathy.
As we come to know ourselves, we transcend the material realm and human
comprehension. Knowing thyself is life-giving; it is a source of
consciousness; it has intention and purpose; it connects us to all beings, it is
an aspect of our deepest essence. Knowing ourselves involve constituting
ourselves as a spiritual subject. Seeing ourself as being a soul having a
spiritual nature, and nurturing our soul - to consider that the dimension of
reality that is often called “spiritual” is the most important part of who we are.
This is God’s grace allowing us to construct ourselves when self dies. We
come to Christ with an eternal mind, nurturing our spirituality in a specific
way - as someone who is engaged in self-transformation, discovering or
attaining our essence as being more than mortal flesh, and living in,
interacting with, and aligning ourselves to a heavenly bearing that extends
deeper and beyond the immediate materiality of the world as it appears to
the humanly senses. We have access to full meaning truth. The key idea
here to knowing ourselves is that spirituality is a search for truth, and that
this search involves a process of transformation of oneself. Spirituality is an
access to truth that comes through self-transformation rather than through
the accumulation of knowledge. We move away from ordinary life. We have
a quest toward truth and its ultimate meaning. Our life now involves knowing
the spiritual sense of our whole self. Knowing our intention through trust in
God. He knows we are to live our lives daily. He sent His son to die for us
that we might live for him, allowing God to use us and our uniqueness - to do
His work. We have a better perspective on who we are and how God
continued humanity in us for His purposes.
T o know thyself is to know that we do not measure up to the qualifications
for God’s love. That we don’t measure up to being perfect. But to know thyself
does mean that we are the recipients of His grace and mercy! That mercy,
that grace, is at work as we run through the filter of God’s word to bring us
to God in the righteous perfectness of Jesus Christ. To know thyself grants
us sight of how God and His word are our framework and foundation for
worth and worthiness in the plan of God. Know thyself is written in every
scripture. The omnipresence of God teaches us that He is not ashamed of
being present in His created beings. It is this quality that makes Him God,
and it is the absence of this quality that makes us human beings. We are
made in His image, we are expected to imitate God and fill up the gap. We
are to behave in the terms He behaves, so that we may not be ashamed of
the testimony of Jesus. To do this, we go through a process of knowing what
is 'I am', and what is not 'I am'. That is the difference between the 'self' and
the 'non-self'. So, we start with ourselves hearing the admonition of the
ancients warning us…"know thyself." Know thyself means, 'know God'. We
should know ourselves as in God, existing in God, coming from God and
going into God. This is Jesus calling for us to be “one”.
To know thyself is to know that our creation is an opportunity, not a privilege.
We are to make the best use of time, of life. Let us transcend to the height
to understand God’s reason for us to know ourselves. Jesus came in the
fulness of humanity and the fulness of divinity. He came to be that example
for man that we may be restored to the image and likeness deemed to us at
creation. We are to understand both humanity and divinity in regard to our
purposes. The word of God counseling us to know thyself is considered
important because it allows us to understand our strengths, weaknesses,
and motivations, which in turn enables us to better align our lives with God's
will, make informed decisions, and grow spiritually by addressing areas
where we need to change or develop further; essentially, by understanding
who we are at our core, we can better serve God and live a life that reflects
His image. He who does not know himself does not know God either. And he
who does not know God does not know the truth and the nature of things in
general… He who does not know himself continually sins against God and
continually moves farther away from Him. Self-knowledge is one of our
foremost duties. We were made a being of lofty rank and has been destined
to become like God, in Whose image we were determined, and a participant
in divine goodness and blessedness. But in order to become a divine
likeness, good and blessed, and to commune with God, we must first of all
know ourself. Without self-knowledge we go astray in our thoughts, we are
dominated by diverse passions, tyrannized by violent desires, troubled about
many and vain things, and lead a disorderly, distracted life, erring in all
things, wandering on the way, staggering at every step; and we stumble, fall,
and are crushed. We drink every day potions of sorrow and bitterness, fill our
hearts with grief, and live an unbearable life. We must learn to be concerned
about things eternal. There is in us the power of self-knowledge – being a
spiritual and morally free being, having free will and the power of knowing.
But in order to acquire perfect knowledge of ourselves, we must first will, and
then move toward self-inquiry and make ourselves an object of study.
Without willing, none of the things that ought to be done can be done. The
faculty of the will, strengthened by the faculty of reason, and that of free
choice and self-control, overcomes all obstacles and succeeds in everything:
‘I will’, becomes, ‘I can’, in us, that acts with knowledge and freedom. We
ought to will, to know ourself, to know God, and to understand the nature of
things as they are in themselves, and thus become an image and likeness
of God. With us being well advised comes wisdom. In knowing thyself we
know our duties toward ourself, toward God, and toward our neighbor, and
that piety, justice, truth and knowledge should be for us the touchstone on
which we test all our acts that have reference to God, to ourself, and to our
neighbor… We are never to be puffed up, never to be filled with pride, but
first of all we are to know our shortcomings and our faults, always comparing
ourself with the ideal prototype, Jesus, in the likeness of which we ought to
develop ourself, inasmuch as we see how much we fall short of his example.
Let’s behold Jesus… What consequence might we see in him? What mystery
might we learn of concerning ourselves? This mystery may be difficult for us
to comprehend. Right at the outset I lodge a warning - we will consider
written revelations that may disorient our mind. They are revelations of
God. If it’s a revelation and we don’t understand it, we mustn’t argue with it,
it’s a revelation. Do not become disturbed by the realities of God’s word that
we cannot comprehend. Pray the Holy Spirit.
The mystery is of the incarnation, God manifest in Christ, His only begotten
Son. This is a subject that we need to study and yet it is beyond our
understanding to comprehend. Yet, we can fathom this mystery through the
subduing of the heart to the Holy Spirit. Christ could have done nothing
during His earthly ministry in saving fallen man if the divine had not been
blended with the human. The limited capacity of man cannot define this
wonderful mystery - the blending of the two natures, the divine and the
human. How can we enter into this mystery? Because of Christ we are
privileged to be a partaker of the divine nature, and in this way we can to
some degree enter into the mystery. We need to study Christ’s life as given
in God’s word. Christ died for us, and he is the way that we die to self.
Reason this statement to see what is meant - truth is so large, so far-
reaching, so deep, so broad, that self is lost sight of. To know thyself, we are
to contemplate Jesus Christ. He is the representative specimen that came to
know himself just as we are to come to know ourselves. It is a solemn reality
that Christ came to fight the battles as man, in man’s behalf. His temptation
and victory tell us that humanity must copy the Pattern; we must become a
partaker of the divine nature. Close study must be brought forth that no
confusion concerning our partaking is allowed to enter our reasoning with
God. Jesus was tried in all points like as we are. Being tried is being enticed.
It is a deep and strong desire, but being not conceived neither is sin. This
was the experience of Jesus. Was Jesus a man? He was tempted as every
man is. This pure wonderful God coming down into human flesh as a babe,
as a youth, through to thirty years of age suffering as every man. Temptation
is the phase of everyone’s experience. This, the human nature of Christ must
endure being actually tempted all through his life. He was, in terrible reality,
tempted as we are, and because He successfully resisted temptation under
every form, He gave us the perfect example, and through the ample provision
Christ has made, we may become partakers of the divine nature. In Christ is
how we can know ourself. He was placed on probation, with liberty to yield
to Satan’s temptations and work at cross-purposes with God. If this were not
so, if it had not been possible for Him to fall, He could not have been tempted
in all points as the human family is tempted. For a period of time Christ was
on probation. He took humanity on Himself, to stand the test and trial which
the first Adam failed to endure. Had He failed in His test and trial, He would
have been disobedient to the voice of God, and the world would have been
lost. Unless there is a possibility of yielding, temptation is no temptation.
Temptation is resisted when man is powerfully influenced to do a wrong
action and, knowing that he can do it, resists, by faith, with a firm hold upon
divine power. This was the ordeal through which Christ passed. He could not
have been tempted in all points as man is tempted, had there been no
possibility of His failing. He was a free agent, placed on probation, as was
Adam, but not like Adam, and as is every man so too unlike Adam save in
the affect and effect of sin. Adam and Eve received their old sin nature by an
act of negative volition. We receive our old sin nature by an act of physical
birth, the first birth. In His closing hours, while hanging upon the cross, He
experienced to the fullest extent what man must experience when striving
against sin. This is the revelation of the mystery by which we may be able to
strive against sin and conquer as did Jesus. By looking to Jesus, we can
know ourselves in him, and experience that divine nature. This is how we are
to comprehend the significance of the word to be like Christ…
“to know thyself”. Sin must be made hatefully painful to us.
Jesus is that great and good truth to say the image of God is within us. The
substance of our soul is the essence of that infinite and eternal Spirit from
whence all life, all power, and all things proceed. Because of this truth, the
most terrifying words we can hear are “ye of little faith”. We do not believe in
an imaginary or man-made God. Because all things are possible with Him,
we can know ourselves as did His Son…we can partake of the human and
the divine. It is our faith in God that with Him all things are possible that we
can, through and by that belief, control ourself to such an extent that we bring
ourself to a literal realization of that which we desire…to be like Jesus.
To know ourselves is to know that we were born spiritually dead. When man
partook of the forbidden tree, his negative volition led to his acquiring a sin
nature. So, the original man was created. Everyone else is perpetuated. This
is a very important distinction in knowing thyself. Volition is the power of
choosing, the power of determining. But we have that gifted of Christ – we
have the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things
with spiritual. And by Him we are instructed having the mind of Christ. The
human spirit with the Word, the Holy Spirit teaches the human spirit. ‘‘The
Spirit beareth witness with our spirit.’’ When the Holy Spirit puts the Word
into the human spirit, this is when we are hearing and listening to the
teaching of the Word. Then we have something on which to use our free will
beside what we have in the soul. The thinking in the soul is human viewpoint.
But the Word of God is divine viewpoint by which we come to know ourselves
by the consciousness of God. Because we were ignorant of self we sinned.
But because of this spiritual experience in knowing ourselves we can stop
sinning…by volition…by choice. We can now have the thought pattern of
grace. Jesus Christ had compassion because He was God in His Deity,
which is an extension of His love. In His humanity He had compassion,
because He had not a sin nature. He was minus of any mental attitude
towards sin and therefore He had the capacity for love. His compassion was
an expression of the capacity to love. He was born of the Spirit. Knowing
thyself is knowing how to open to God that we may be born of the Spirit.
Jesus knew who he was to the extent that rather be made a king, which was
contrary to the mind of our Lord Jesus, he departed. Herein he has left us a
testimony of sober judgment according to the measure of faith given us. To
know ourselves reveals the magnitude of God's presence in our lives as He
examines the depth of our hearts. We are to be defined by the word of God.
Our self-concept, also called self-construction, our self-identity, our self-
perspective or self-structure is an assembling of principles about ourselves.
We must know these things that we not deceive ourselves. We are known of
God. And by His purpose we are brought to the knowledge of self. We are
thus recovered out of the ignorance and bondage under which we before lay.
By owing to ourselves this account we are more under the greater obligation
to know that all purposes assigned us by God begins with Him. We know
Him, because we are known of Him. This is how we come to know ourselves.
The knowledge of self will never lead us to the knowledge of God, whereas
the knowledge of God will reveal to us what it is that we are to learn about
ourselves. We begin to recognize our divine selves being awakened to the
truths revealed by God. We no longer define ourselves in terms of our limited
human nature as a desecration of the image of God within us. We must learn
to identify ourselves with that which is real in the eternal part. We
contemplate the part of us made in the image and likeness of God, and claim
our born again right. For, as we know thyself as His elect-child, we become
empowered by all we have inside. So, we make it our purpose to know
ourself. For, within us is hidden the treasure of treasures…the likeness of
God. Through this realization, we can confidently and boldly declare with
certainty that “I in Christ, and Christ in the Father, are one!”
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