Self-Awareness | Pastor Zach's Blog

Posts tagged ‘Self-Awareness’

Knowing Thyself

On the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, there is inscribed a famous maxim: “Know thyself.” But knowing one’s self can be hard. Solomon writes, “The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters” (Proverbs 20:5). In other words, we often don’t understand our own hearts – our own selves. Or, as the apostle Paul puts it: “I do not understand what I do” (Romans 7:15).

Knowing thyself is key. After all, if we do not understand ourselves – including our hidden motives and perverse incentives – it will be very difficult for us to love others rather than use them. So, what is the key to knowing ourselves better?

Scripture gives us some critical practices to help us know ourselves. The first is that of confession, or self-examination. In confession, we grapple with what we know we’ve done wrong – those things that nag us with guilt and regret. The lie we told. The lust we indulged. The addiction we engaged. The person we hurt. Confession brings the parts of ourselves we would rather pretend not to know into the light. It is the first step to knowing ourselves.

But there is more. For we need not only confession, but counseling, or cross-examination. Oftentimes, our motives are so mixed, or our sin becomes so opaque to us, that we cannot see it for what it is. We become strangers to ourselves. We have all had the experience where we offended someone, often justifiably, and we did not even know it because we did not see how our words or actions hurt others. Those who counsel us – and not just professionally, but as friends, spouses, and neighbors – can help us identify our blind spots. After Solomon writes, “The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters,” he adds, “but one who has insight draws them out” (Proverbs 20:5). We need people of insight around us to draw out what we cannot ferret out for ourselves.

Both of these practices can help us know ourselves. But, of course, knowing yourself is quite different than liking yourself. When we become aware of the depth of our brokenness and sin, it can be easy to fall into despair or self-loathing. This is why one more practice is needed – that of compurgation.

Compurgation was an early common-law method of trial in which a defendant could be acquitted on the endorsement of friends or neighbors. In other words, if enough people interceded for someone who had been accused of a crime, he could be exonerated on his friends’ testimony.

The apostle Paul asks:

Who is the one who condemns? No one.

Paul says that no one can condemn us in our sin. Why? Because:

Christ Jesus who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. (Romans 8:34)

Christ is the one who testifies on our behalf. And His testimony is all we need to be exonerated by being forgiven through Him. His compurgation is enough.

So then, who are we? We are children of God through Christ. We are sinners by nature, yes. But we are also saints through faith. How do we know this? By knowing ourselves – and, even more importantly, by knowing Christ.