Be True to Yourself

That's the conventional wisdom. "You have to be true to yourself." That's what they tell you. I mean, wasn't it Shakespeare who said, "To thine own self be true"? And who was wiser than Bill?

I would suggest, however, that if you are going to take a biblical worldview, this might not be the best course of action. Consider what the Bible says about self.

We all know that God created Man and "behold, it was very good" (Gen 1:31). "That," most people seem to think, "was that. People are, basically, pretty good." But that's only the beginning of the biblical account, because by chapter 3 we're looking at the Fall of Man and the Bible now has some rather drastic descriptives for Man after that.

The proclamation from God before the Flood was "every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Gen 6:5) and after the Flood it was "the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth." (Gen 8:21). Not an improvement.

John called us "the children of the devil" (1 John 3:10). Paul says, "I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh." (Rom 7:18). And that was as nice as he got. "Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these." (Gal 5:19-21). We are "dead in the trespasses and sins" and "by nature children of wrath" (Eph 2:1-3). He affirmed that "the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God", making us unable to please God (Rom 8:7-8). We are ruled by sin (Rom 6:12), blinded by the god of this world (2 Cor 4:4), unable to understand spiritual things (1 Cor 2:14). Jeremiah declared "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jer 17:9).

You know, when you boil it all down, the sinner has very little to commend him. So, let me ask you, are you sure you want to be true to yourself? If "self" is supposed to be put off (Col 3:9), perhaps "Be true to yourself" is not the best conventional wisdom to go by.