WHAT’S THIS OLD SELF / NEW SELF STUFF?
— or —
If GOD MADE ME TO BEGIN WITH, AND I’m a New Creation IN cHRIST, Why Am I Still SUCH a Mess? 

Birth: 

We may have been born as the result of our parents’ physical union, but the Bible is clear that God thought of us first, and it is He who made us in our mother’s womb (Jeremiah 1:5;[1] Psalm 139:13-16).[2] He was even in the delivery room birthing us (Psalm 22:9a): “Yet you brought me out of the womb”. We were gifts from God to our families (Psalm 127:3),[3] and God gives only “good and perfect” gifts (James 1:17).[4]

However, because of sin, we were also born spiritually dead. That means that we were born disconnected from God: see If God is Such a Good God, Why Is There so Much Evil in the World?. We come to understand how serious a problem that is as we see sin and the effect of sin appear in our children while they are still babes in arms. In fact, some of us were born already tainted with sin. For example, if our mother experienced a trauma while pregnant, we may have been born a fearful person. Did God make us fearful? No. Sin brought fear into our life.

As babies in a fallen world, we all experienced pain from our very beginning. A feeding may have been unduly delayed, a pin may have opened and hurt us and not been attended to right away, we may have heard angry voices in the next room arguing, and so on. As babies, and later as children, we had an under-developed brain and ability to think and reason and, without a spiritual connection with God to make up the lack, we were left to come to conclusions on our own that we were ill-equipped to make. And so we decided that we were being abused because we were bad, we figured Daddy was away all the time because he didn’t love us and not because he was a long-distance trucker, we had the horrible accident because we have no protection in this world, etc. And so we took on things like rejection, distrust, fear, and so on. These things became so much a part of us that we began to think they were us - I’m just shy, careful, slow to warm up to people, etc. But they were, and are, not us - only the results of sin.  

New birth: 

Fast forward to becoming Christians and being born again. Because of our new birth, we are now new creations in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).[5] There is technically now nothing wrong with us “because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Hebrews 10:14). And we possess “everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Christ who called us by His own glory and goodness” (2 Peter 1:3).

Remember, however, that the sin we have experienced over a lifetime has done quite a number on us, and we are very used to behaving and reacting in poor ways. Even after being saved by Christ, sometimes we can’t seem to change. And so we wonder, if we’re born again and all things are new, why are some things still the same?

The answer is that, at the core of our being, there is nothing wrong with us. We received a God-created personality at birth and now a God-given new nature in our new birth, and our connection with God has been restored. But we haven’t yet learned to throw off “everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles” (Hebrews 12:1)[6] so that the new creation we already are can emerge.

Many churches teach that we become Christlike by trying as hard as we can to become like Jesus. But the Scriptures teach that, at the core of our being, we are already new, perfect and righteous: 

(Hebrews 10:14) . . . because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
(2 Corinthians 5:17) Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
(2 Peter 1:3) His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 

The believer’s struggle: 

My answer to any Christian wondering why they’re still so very much the same as they were before Christ is that we, as believers, are all challenged to put off the old self and put on the new (Ephesians 4:24). This does not mean trying hard to become someone better than we are right now. The new self that we have received is said to be “created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). There are no weaknesses or imperfections in that description. The true description of every Christian is that “we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). What we need is, not to become someone new, but for the new person we already are to reveal itself and for the old to give way so that can happen. The Bible calls this “putting off the old self” and “putting on the new self”.  

Baby steps to the new self: 

            Christians who seek help from other Christians because they don’t seem to be able to put off their old sinful ways are generally given some marvelous tools for beginning to remove those stubborn strongholds in their lives. And it’s worthwhile to summarize those tools here. 

(1)        Confess: As anyone recovering from anything knows, the first step to personal change is to admit (confess) that you have a problem. We need to own the problem. It’s ours, and we are 100% responsible for it. Yes, we may have ended up this way because our parents abused us, or we had an otherwise awful childhood, or life has treated us poorly. But that is the past. Now we are responsible. We can stay in our mess, or we can leave it. The promise of God, just on the basis of our confession, at least with regard to sin, is that He will not only deal with the one issue, but will remove all the issues attached to that one - He will “purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

(2)        Understand: Understand that Jesus has done everything that needs to be done in order for us to be conformed to His image. Romans 6 says: 

6  For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin -
7  because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
8  Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
9  For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.
10  The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
11  In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 

This is where many of us lose the battle. We believe that we are not free to change, that we are stuck, perhaps even that we were born this way and there’s nothing we can do about it. But when Jesus said “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36), He indicated that we are completely free - “free indeed” - including free to grow and to change. We need to take a stand on that. We need to count ourselves “dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11).

(3)        Repent: Choose for the opposite. We do not change by trying harder to be different. Rather, Romans 6:13 says: “Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.” In other words, whereas we may, in a crisis, grit our teeth and force ourselves not to fall into old ways, long term, we change simply by coming again and again to God, offering ourselves to Him to be changed.

(4)        Deal with ministry issues: As God works to make changes, He fingers issues that feed our problem and asks us to deal with them: sins that need to be confessed, people who need to be forgiven (including ourselves), pain that needs to be given to Him for healing, curses and judgments that need to be broken, soul ties that need to be cut, and so on: see SIX areas of life where bondages commonly need to be broken. Sometimes we can deal with those on our own. At other times, we may need the help of a counselor or a layperson skilled in ministry and pastoral care.

(5)        Resist Satan: Satan is not at all happy about our living godly lives, and he will try to thwart that. Therefore, in addition to submitting to God, we need to resist the devil and keep him from ruining our progress (James 4:5). Deliverance is also sometimes needed. 

After all that, I still have my problem - now what: 

The five steps listed above are aimed at removing the sinful/painful junk that sits on our life and keeps us down. They are usually not useful in helping us to live out of that new self which was “created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). In fact, doing all of them can, for some people, create quite a problem in this regard.

Some of you reading this article will have great strongholds, many of which you have come to believe are you. When such great strongholds are pulled down, people routinely realize that a huge part of “themselves” is gone. And they have no idea what’s left. Who are they now? They may not even be sure there is a person left at all. Now what? 

False self / old self: 

            The truth is that, before we came to know God in Christ, we didn’t know who we really were. God created us with an identity in Himself but, without Him (remember, we were born disconnected from Him because of sin), we hadn’t a clue about that identity. Humans, though, must have an identity, and so we created one of our own. We took our cue from the people around us - what pleased them, what got us punished, what got us called a good boy or a good girl, what caused people to like us as friends, what turned people off, what gave us satisfaction, what protected us from hurt? We figured out the answers to those questions as best we could and tried to live according to our answers, and the person we made ourselves to be became our identity. But it wasn’t our real identity because God had no part in it. Our real identity is the one God created and then restored to us in Christ when He birthed in us a living spirit and our missing connection with Him finally became ours. 

Real self / new self: 

            The Bible message about who we are now that we’re Christians is very simple. We are one with Christ: 

(1 Corinthians 6:17) But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.
(Philippians 1:21a) For to me, to live is Christ . . .
(Colossians 3:3-4) For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. 

Which is all very nice, but not necessarily so very understandable. So let’s look at a picture.

            The Scripture says that we are oaks of righteousness (Isaiah 61:3b): “They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.” An oak isn’t a mover and shaker in its little corner. If fact, an oak doesn’t even move, meaning that, if we’re like the oak, we don’t become “good Christians” by trying hard. The oak doesn’t strive for perfect “oakness” or to be the best oak it can be. It simply is, and it blesses the world - with beauty, shade, oxygen and enrichment of the earth - not by running around doing good deeds, but by being what it already is.

            Further, while the oak is separate from the earth, it is also one with the earth. It enriches the soil when it drops its leaves, then is itself enriched by drawing those same nutrients back up from the soil through its roots. It breathes in carbon dioxide from the air and returns oxygen to the air to be breathed by other living things. Those creatures breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide for the trees to take in. In other words, while the oak is distinct from everything else on the earth, the lines between its life and the life of other things on the earth and the earth itself are quite blurred. So it is with us as believers and God.

            Our true identity is “meonewithChrist” - separate, yet one. Jesus said (John 15:5a): “I am the vine; you are the branches.” A vine is not a vine unless it has branches, and the branches die if not joined to the vine. Separate, yet one.

            But our old nature - the one we created - likes to be independent. Separateness is its trademark. Any time we catch ourselves living as if we and God are completely separate, we are living out of that old, false identity. That self: 

·        prays so that God will do something (as if we have desires that God doesn’t have and He needs to be persuaded);

·        tries hard to improve itself and be more like Christ (as if we have a life separate from Christ’s life and the Bible is wrong when it says “For to me, to live is Christ” (Philippians 1:21a));

·        works because that makes a Christian a good Christian and not just a pew warmer (as if we have to become good or prove that we’re good, when we’re already good because we have the righteousness of God as a gift (Romans 5:17));[7]

·        reads the Bible regularly hoping to learn about anything else it can do to please God (as if God isn’t already pleased and hasn’t already embraced us as deeply as is possible). 

If you’re catching on to all this, you’ll be realizing that your old self - the one you thought was you up til now - serves no purpose in God’s kingdom and family. And you would be right. Which is why the Bible says (Ephesians 4:22): 

22  You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;

23  to be made new in the attitude of your minds;
24  and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. 

            This is a very frightening idea to many Christians. The old self is all they’ve ever known. If they let it go, what will be left? And how do you let go of something that you’ve been so attached to that you’ve thought all these years that it was you?

            Not much can be said specifically about what your new self is like because you are unique. However, what can be said for sure, because the Bible says it, is what has already been said in this article - your new self is “created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24b). And your new self is one with God. This means that if you let go of everything you thought was you and yours (a very small package), you gain everything because everything has been given to us in Christ (2 Peter 1:3): “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” Many of us who are stuck just haven’t experienced that yet because we haven’t yet made the acquaintance of the new us in Christ.

            So how do we do that? The answer is simple but not easy. We need to learn how to just be someone loved by Christ. Because that is the essence of our new self - “meonewithChristandlovedbyChrist”. And we are already that person. We just need to discover that for ourselves.

            So how do we do that? Here is where I may stand to be corrected. But the only way I know of right now to discover myself in Christ is through silent or contemplative prayer, which is one form of meditation. In silent prayer, we ask nothing, we go nowhere, we seek to accomplish nothing - we simply are - with God who is in us. We abandon all doing, and we open ourselves to God’s life and to be who we are in Him.

            It is beyond the scope of this article to teach the ins and outs of contemplative prayer or to describe the typical journey from old self to new. Unfortunately, there are very few guides within the typical North American church. However, good books have been written for any who want more insight. Or you can simply carve out of your busy schedule daily periods of time to withdraw, be silent, and turn to God who is within you, with no agenda other than to be - in the moment - breathing - open to experiencing or not experiencing anything consciously - no judgments on the quality of the time spent - just being - one breath at a time - noticing and letting go of thoughts that take you away, and gently bringing your mind back, over and over, for as many times as needed, to breathing, being, letting go of all else just to be. Eventually, you will come to know that place where God is within you, and to know your union with Him, which is your new self, and you will begin to live out of that place and that self - all without having done anything to make it happen - just by being still. That is why the Bible says: 

(Isaiah 30:15b) In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength . . . [this verse finishes sadly, but describes many in our North American churches who are so concerned with doing and striving - but you would have none of it.”]
(Psalm 37:7a Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him . . .
(Psalm 46:10a) “Be still, and know that I am God . . .”
(Galatians 2:20a) I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. 

For those readers who may be thinking that this all sounds passive and useless, try it. Because, as passive and useless as it may seem on the outside, it is one of the most difficult things you’ll ever try. In fact, it is only possible because Christ makes it so, for the most capable among us is not equipped for it in ourselves. Jesus’ words in Matthew 19:26b very much apply: “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” And it will take you on an adventure beyond anything you’ve ever dreamed. 

Final thought: 

Jesus said (Matthew 5:14): “You are the light of the world.” Ask yourself how light is linked to the fire that makes it (no electricity in Bible times), and you’ll have some idea of what your new identity in Christ is like.

 Sharon Currens