The Judge Within
"Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom". These are the words of the great Aristotle. To most, I am sure this rings with a bit of truth but to me, true wisdom has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with knowing my creator. I often feel, in today's society, we put a great deal of emphasis on "learning who we are" and " finding our truth". Life has become so self-centered yet we are all dripping with disfunction. We focus on trying to define ourselves to help bring joy and peace into our lives but personally, I feel we are looking in all of the wrong places.
In last week's post, I talked about judgment and how it has seriously wounded our faith. I spoke about how we have often judged others to deflect from all of the things we refuse to address in our own lives and I ended the post with what I felt was the solution. Self Examination. Now, when I originally wrote "The Judge" I felt as if it were truly that simple until I tried to follow my own direction and look within. I don't know if any of you can relate, but every time I actively tried to look into "ME" it seemed like I hit a wall. I knew that examining one's self was not an easy task but I seriously underestimated the level of my mental blockages. I eventually began to get a little frustrated with the whole process and then it hit me. I was trying to address "ME" without "JESUS".
I am learning that everything I do has to be rooted in what God says, so I prayed and went on a search in my bible (with the help of Google of course) and landed on 2 Corinthians 13:5-6. In this passage, Paul is writing his final letters to the church of Corinth. The entire book of Corinthians 1 & 2 are letters from Paul encouraging, admonishing, and guiding the church in the right direction, and in verse 13: 5-6 he says "Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves...". He goes on to talk about giving yourself a test and be sure to pass it and if not do something about it ( I read the Message version btw). And there it was as clear as day. Self-examination starts with my faith.
All week I struggled with where to start. I tried to focus on life occurrences that I know have affected me and different things like that when I should have been focusing on my FAITH! Before I can change anything I first need to examine the evidence of Christ in me. When we examine ourselves to only "fix" things we will fail every time because we look for perfection in behavior versus evidence of christ. Looking for perfection in ourselves leads to searching for perfection in others and it creates an unhealthy cycle of judgment. Searching for evidence of Christ guides us to seek God daily. When we look inwardly the only thing that should matter is how God is reflected in us. When we remain in Christ the fruits of this divine attachment will leak in every aspect of our lives.
I know it's a bit cliche but it really is that simple. The beginning of self-examination is checking for evidence of Christ in us, which should not be confused with the evidence of perfection in us. I think that we have all confused the two at some point in our lives. For myself, this week's focus will only be searching for the qualities of christ within me. Do I display Christs' love, grace, forgiveness, and other qualities? Do I know what the word says about being like Christ? Aristotle's quote says wisdom begins with knowing yourself, but I believe real wisdom begins with knowing christ and hiding him in your heart. I've said in prior posts that I want us to go on this journey together so, let's commit to growing together this week. Take the time to search God's word for the qualities of Christ even if you have to google it and share what you have discovered. As always, remember that you are not alone so Let's Get This Work Together!
