How to Find Freedom to Truly Be Yourself

Photo by Jackson David

The 21st century is filled with the message that the freedom to be yourself, to be true to yourself, is giving into your desires. It is about looking inward. It is allowing your emotions and your mind to discern what is wrong and right, what is best for you, and how you should live. While this idea sounds very appealing and indeed, “freeing,” the problem is that we are rooting ourselves in something that is unstable - ourselves. This idea of freedom is not a 21st century problem. It is a human problem. It is what we have done since the fall when we wanted to be God, determining what is right and wrong for us to do. I know that it is offensive to say that human individuals should not be trusted to determine who they are based on desires, but I also know the confusion, chaos, and most importantly, rejection of God that results from this idea. Even though I am a Christian, I myself must still be reminded that being free to be myself does not mean being the god of my own life. Praise the Lord, He has provided a way that we can find who we truly are.

To Be Myself, I Must Know Why I Was Made

Knowing that we are created by God, it is hard to understand what it means to be ourselves when we do not understand why God made us. Certainly, God’s endless creativity has created billions and billions of unique individuals since Adam and Eve, yet all men and women have been created for one specific purpose since the beginning. First, “God created man in His own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). Out of all His creation, God set humanity apart. He made us as image bearers - reflectors of God and His glory. We are given different capabilities, such as morality, spirituality, complex communication, complex relationships, and a creativity and intelligence that animals do not have. Being made in the image of God doesn’t mean we are God, but it means God has given us personality, a spirit, and incredible value. Why did God make humans this way? As I explain in a previous article, God made humanity for His glory, that is, to display His greatness, which is seen in Isaiah 43:6-7:

bring My sons from afar

and My daughters from the end of the earth,

everyone who is called by My name,

whom I created for My glory,

whom I formed and made.

It is only just that God would desire His glory to be displayed because He is the only Being worthy of glory and worship. His glory is different than ours - untainted, majestic, beautiful, and holy. We were formed and made to give God worship and reflect His goodness in how we bear His image in everything we do.

Freedom Cannot Be Found in Myself

If our Creator made us for a specific, eternal purpose, then we are pursuing who we are meant to be when we are pursuing what we are made for. The reason it is sinful to create our own purpose in life and define our own identity is because this is outside of God’s design, and therefore, it is not glorifying God. Instead, we are glorifying ourselves when we try to pave our own path, but this is a glory we do not deserve. Not just because of our sin but because we are not Lord of our own lives - not to mention the world, and we have no power at all save the power God grants to us (Psalm 62:11).

Many question this, saying, “How can I be myself if I am not doing things I want to do?” But we must remember that all humans are born with sin in their hearts, and so our desires have been distorted: “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). In a sense, until God gives us a new heart, we are blinded to our sin, blinded to the Truth, and blinded to our purpose. Our desires are not aligned with what God wants from us, and therefore, we cannot become who we were made to be.

Being Myself Means Living For God

The paradox of being our true selves is that we cannot look inward. The first essential step to finding who I am is realizing that only when I look to God can I find how to live for Him. God gave many laws and commandments for His people to follow in the old testament so that they would live a holy and perfect life. However, due to the sinful flesh of every human being (Romans 3:23), no one kept the law perfectly. There was no hope for humanity, so to save them from the judgment they were heaping upon themselves due to their rebellion, God sent Jesus to walk among us and show us what it meant to live a life that perfectly glorified God and honored Him in every way. Not only that, but Jesus died on the cross, bearing our sins and failure to uphold the law in perfection and honor God, so that we would be forgiven and be united with God. How do we live for God? Look to Christ, our example, and look to His word that guides us. Ultimately, our “life’s motto,” if you will, is summed up by Jesus as, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37-39). This is how we are to live.

Being Myself Requires a New Heart

The second essential step to finding how to be my true self is that I must be given a new heart. By looking to Christ to free me from my bondage to my sinful flesh, I am not simply washed from my sins but made completely new. We must be given new hearts - one that aligns with the Truth of our God. One that desires what God desires rather than sin. Only God can take out the heart of sinful desires to give us a new heart: “And I [God] will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God” (Ezekiel 11:19-20). In order to love God with all of our being and to love others with His love, we must be given a new heart. This new heart that has been cleansed by Christ allows the Holy Spirit to abide in us and guide us in battling sin and pursuing righteousness (see John 14:15-17).

Being Myself Means Placing My Identity in Christ Alone

Finally, when God cleanses us from our sin through the work of Jesus Christ and gives us a new heart, we are able to place our identity in Christ. This is the most essential part of personhood. Having our identity in Christ means that we become adopted as children of God, and God becomes our Father. “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13). Our God is not only King and Creator - He is also our perfect Father. Know that your identity in Christ is covered by the unending love and Fatherly care of God, who has planned your life for your good as well as His glory.

Having our identity in Christ also means that our sin is no longer our identity - Christ’s righteousness is placed on us. As the apostle Paul explains, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). Our old self that was dead in sin died in the death of Christ, so we have been given a new self that is alive in the resurrection of Christ. This was hard for me to grasp at first because I still sin - it can’t be denied. However, this is not who I am anymore. When I sin, which is quite frequently, it is an act that does not align with who I am because who I am is now in Christ; in a sense, sinning is “not acting like my true self.” Righteousness, however, aligns more with who we are meant to be.

It is important to note here that there are no “3 simple steps to stop sinning” or “3 easy ways to be like Jesus.” Having an identity in Christ is frequently learning how to die to ourselves, usually because of battling temptation, but most importantly - it is relying on the Holy Spirit, to work on your heart. Without His help, without the strength He supplies, our efforts to be like Christ will be self-glorifying rather than God glorifying, and our efforts will all be in vain. As Jesus says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

So How Can We Be Ourselves?

The answer to being ourselves is by putting our identity in Christ, not the world, not in our emotions, and not in what other people tell us. Putting our identity in Christ influences every aspect of our lives - what we desire, how we think, how we talk, how we act, what we love and what we hate - because it is who we are. Contrary to what the world says, putting our identity in Christ does not make us into robots, and it does not take away our value or uniqueness. Only when we put our identity in Christ, remembering that He is our freedom and righteousness, can we become who God made us to be - freed from our distorted hearts and reconciled to God. While no longer enslaved to sin, we will still have times of battling our flesh as we try to be like Christ. But in eternity with Him, we will no longer wonder what it will be like to be completely ourselves, because we will finally be made perfect, and we will be like Jesus, our perfect Representative, for we shall see Him as He is (1 John 3:2).