A faulty cockpit instrument can potentially give a pilot a completely wrong understanding of his or her aircraft’s flight condition. The same is sometimes true when we use our faulty, fallen minds to determine who we really are or aren’t in the eyes of God.
It is easy to think of our deepest identity at any given moment truly being what we may feel ourselves to be: unbelieving, unloved, unknown, rejected. It can be a discouragingly effortless thing to “self-define” at such times, to decide that our perceptions are the only reality about who we are. Then it can be so much easier to believe what may be a lie of the soul than to believe otherwise.
Yet, as Christians, this is exactly what we are called to do, both for our own good and that infinitely greater good: the glorification of our God. Thankfully, it is the nature of the Divine to have absolute sovereignty over determining what is true and what isn’t.
In fact, God Himself is truth. He is the only One who knows exactly what is in a man, far beyond what the man himself does, and far more accurately. We not only do ourselves a disservice when we try to know who we are by our own wits, but we also usurp our Lord’s rightful place as the One who really does know.
But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore, do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. 1 Corinthians 4:3-5
