How Well Do You Know Yourself?

By Author: Terry Dashner
Total Articles: 94
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How well do you know yourself?

Terry Dashner..Faith Fellowship Church PO Box 1586 Broken Arrow, OK 74013

The ancients said it this way: To thine own self be true, and know thyself. You could define the study of philosophy by this: Know Thyself.

Peter Kreeft, professor of philosophy and author states this, You can be knowledgeable without knowing yourself, but you cannot be wise without knowing yourself. For if you do not know yourself, if you are a stranger to yourself. If you have never wondered about the knower, only about the known, then no matter how much knowledge you have, you do not know who has it.

Most of the predecessors of Socrates focused exclusively on the terrestrial and celestial bodies, but Socrates studied only about man and his issues. He wanted to harmonize virtue and vice, wisdom and ignorance and right and wrong. In order to do this, he had to study himself. He spent his life learning himself. Ironically, the man who knew more than any other in Greece was executed because they said he corrupted the youth with his teachings and did not worship the right gods (state ...
... gods).

Again professor Kreeft says, Try to measure the earth, and you may succeed (as one ancient Greek, Eratosthenes, actually did), and you may think you are wise; but try to measure yourself and your life's meaning and things like truth, goodness, and beauty, and you will find that you are swimming in waters far over your head. The world in your head is much bigger than the world outside your head.

To know thyself is to know that you are different than the beast of the field. God created you in His image and likeness. But to know yourself is to know your own limitations. When you have done all you can do as a man or woman, rest in God. You must reach your limits before God can help you. To know yourself is to know that evil is your potential as well as good; therefore, resist the urge to do your fellowman wrong. And let God love him through you.

Yes—to know yourself is to know your own bitterness and contempt toward another. Find it and turn it all over to God. He forgives those who forgive others. To know yourself is to know the truth about yourself. What are you hiding from yourself? What are you covering up? Truth alone will set you free.

The Bible says in I Corinthians 2:11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God (NASB). Apart from God who made you, who can really know you? Only you can know yourself. When you come to know who you really are, you see yourself honestly. And honestly you are just a man or woman, nothing more. You are not God. Only God is God. His Holy Spirit, who knows the mind or plan of God, can help you in several ways.

For one the Holy Spirit can search the mind of your human spirit or soul (Romans 8: 27) and can read what's bugging you. He can pick up on things in you that you can't put into words and help you pray the right prayer for relief. Yes He can. Sometimes all we can do is groan in emotional pain and hurt, but the groaning is a language of prayer before God when the Holy Spirit is in it.

And yet another help is in purifying our hearts before God. The Spirit of God searches the deep things of man—the heart of man. He uses the Word of God as an instrument of cleansing and washes away our sins. Jesus told His disciples in John 15:3 that they were cleansed by His Word. This is power, and it sets us free.

As you learn who you are, you are beginning a walk in wisdom. You are wise to acknowledge your limitations before God and man, and let God lift you above them. With God all things are possible.

Keep the faith. Stay the course. Jesus is coming again. Yes, wise men still seek Him.

Pastor T. dash


About the Author Pastors a small church in Broken Arrow, OK.