Does Your Self-concept or Does Your Identity in Christ Define Love?

An imbalance of pride in your life blocks the flow of love and intimacy in relationships. The Bible warns that pride in self alone will shade your perspective and skew the implementation of love in your life (Proverbs 12:15, 16:18, 1 Peter 5:6-7, Galatians 6:4). Pride is universal; both believers and non-believers possess it. When unidentified or left unbridled, it directs you to act in a way that controls, dominates or manipulates circumstances that, while you believe the way to be the right way, if it's untouched by God's truth may eventually bring unanticipated consequences. Some people are oblivious to their own pride so it grows into an attitude of arrogance. The only thing strong enough to break into your cycle of independence (usually accompanied by an attitude of arrogance) is your awareness of and acceptance of God's sovereignty cushioned by His love so that it changes the way you think about Him (Romans 8:28-29, 35-38, Ephesians 2:8-10, 2 Peter 1:3-10). This false pride (not created in and by a Christ identity) emerges from any number of ways. Here's a few to consider:

1. imitating your parent's way of understanding and handling life,

2. a deep seated fear of embarrassment or shame,

3. an identity crisis that hides the feelings of inadequacy from a low self-worth and substituting (however unconsciously) a false pride that skews your perspective.

4. a judgmental (faulty) belief that you are so perfectly superior over others that halts your ability to learn from anyone else - an example of an “unconscious, unconscious” who doesn't practice life-long learning (Appendix 1F).

When you fail to be honest with yourself or others, you block input that could lead to a solution that could break into your pride and relative reality. That's why fear of God (awe, respect) comes first in the relationship. It grows into love as you learn more about His nature and ways, as explained in section 1 of the website entitled "Godly Fear Triggers Actions of Obedience but Love Sustains Conduct".

• Read more about the dangers of Hubristic Pride in an academic article published by Dr. Steven Aicinena  called,  "When pride goes wrong"; published in 2011, in volume 11 of the Sport Journal, pages 1-21.

 

Excessively prideful people are fearful of taking emotional risks. They seldom make good friends because they trust no one but themselves and are not able to establish the emotional intimacy needed to form lasting relationships (1 Corinthians 13:4, Philippians 2:1-3). ​Instead of relying on a dependent relationship with God to learn intentional love as a response to stimuli, the independent person relies on their own strength to respond in a way that seems best to themselves (Romans 12:3, Galatians 6:3, Proverbs 26:12, revisit Appendix 1I on the cycle of sin). This thinking is in direct opposition to Jesus' teaching about how you need to be like a "little child" to enter the Kingdom (Matthew 18:1-5). Independence and pride share a craving for control and this generates a physical reactions in your body that is hyper-active. In other words, the body’s stress release hormone, called cortisol, is triggered on a regular basis instead of being used as it was designed (to sporadically carry out your survival instinct referred to as the “flight or fight” response). Thus, the power of resistance as seen by trying to break bad, unproductive habits.​ Without a standard of truth, relative thinking becomes your “standard” and gives way to arrogant or vain, self-reliant, thinking that becomes a cycle of behavior - leaving you stuck in a hyper-state because of both a psychological reason (faulty beliefs eventually shatter) and a biological reason (the overuse of the cortisol hormone in the memory process that helps form habits).

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The difference between an independent minded person and a vulnerable person is experience. The correlation between identity and love has not yet proven itself to you yet as necessary for sustaining healthy, long-lasting relationships. Vulnerability is needed to establish trust which brings an unpretentious and secure attitude that inspires action. The degree of vulnerability applied to relationships is something that is learned by trial and error and increases with trustworthiness. This may be the key to understanding why you have to start relationship building with Christ first, as your best friend, before you can shed the layer of protection that you put over your self-concept (Psalm 61:3). God replaces your protective layer with His gift of Christ’s identity in you (1 Peter 1:5, 2 Corinthians 5:17). 

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What Do You Do with the Grace of God; Use it or Abuse it?

A person filled with false pride may take the free gift of salvation offered by God (Jesus as Savior) but refuses to accept Jesus as Lord too, because, in their thinking, such acceptance would mean trading independence and self-absorption for humble submission and service to others. The truth that God is the boundary-maker and the One in control, the truth that Christ takes away your shame and fear when you fail, and the truth that the Holy Spirit inspires positive change in your life--these truths only become real to prideful people when God’s love breaks into their cycle of independence. If you suffer from false pride, don’t wait until your dominating, know-it-all self is angry, empty, weak, and distraught. Many times the breakthrough you are searching for is only possible when an overly prideful person has reached a point in their awareness that they can't be self-fulfilled and discover for themselves that "something" is missing from their lives. This can occur at either an extremely low point of inability, emptiness, fear and/or dysfunctional behavior or at a extremely high point of worldly success. This is when soul-searching begins and one can be open for searching for true fulfillment (John 6:35).  

 

This hyper-focus on self-protection (trying to block fear through control) causes ineffective idea generation and poor problem-solving skills so that painful consequences are experienced over and over again without ever understanding. Until you finally realize the limits of your "illusion of control", will you accept the truth that you are not your own God/Higher Power. Only knowing and acting on truth from God’s Word can prevent this subjective, irrational thinking that corrodes your relationship experiences and reinforces a dysfunctional cycle of trust that eventually leaves you alone, paralyzed by fear and stuck in your comfort zone, denying a need to change. 

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When you admit your need for God, and accept His unconditional love for you personally, you can then use this relationship to form healthy interdependent relationships with others (1 John 1:14). You realize that you need to be and are loved unconditionally by God, and want to build a secure self-worth so you value yourself as equally deserving of sound relationships as any one else.

• Read Philippians 2:5-18, below, to see how Paul describes Christ's self-sacrificing love (cumulating in death on the cross) as an outpouring of His humble and submissive attitude demonstrated by obedient behavior to God's standards so He could accomplished the will of His father (perspective shift).

  • Paul encourages you, and all people to let the love of God transformed you from the inside out. ​

    • ​Self-sacrificing love is a dominate trait in the God-head and one that is a core trait in your Christianity, that is, if your intentions are motivated by humility and gratitude to God. This is how you too can look like love! Study out all the scriptures on being humble enough to call on the name of the Lord, and then let your heart control your actions. Here are a few; James 4:1, 10, 1 Peter 5:6, Luke 18:13-14, Acts 2:21, Romans 10:13, 2 Chronicles 7:14, Proverbs 22:4, Micah 6:8, Joel 2:32.

    • The perfection of Christ is not the goal of your actions as a Christian, rather it's your willingness, your intent, to reach the goal that matters to God, to be alive in Christ and dead to sin (Romans 6:10-12). A Spiritual Being fit for the Kingdom of God (Hebrews 11:39-40, Matthew 5:3-10,https://www.gotquestions.org/I-press-on.html). 

      • ​The Apostle Paul's personality was still very much driven and curt after being transformed by Christ, but his passion to teach the Truth was transformed into love and compassion. ​