Reviving This Blog & Not (Exactly) Dying to Christ

     I'm still re-tweaking this blog, but I cannot wait any longer to republish it, because the message God brought in my devotions this morning was so personally soothing to a sore spot in my christianity, that I wanted to share it with you, in hopes that it may possibly help someone else

     Galatians 2:20 (NASB 2020) says, "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me."  This verse has always rankled me.  God really wants to erase my personality to turn me into some pale immitation of Himself?  He created infinitely different people just so He could homogenize our personalities into some beige, bland sameness?

     It is not so much that "Who we are" dies. It is God's omnipotent creativity that designs each of the many trillions of Artworks we call "Humans" each individually different than all the others! Why would He ask us to erase or even just "Mellow out" His beautiful work?

      God is not trying to erase our personality-- our "personhood"--nor is He turning us into mindless drones who numbly follow His commands, each a clone of some vague definition of a "Christian's Personality."

      Rather than seeking to somehow sublimate what He created in each of us, I believe Galatians 2:20 means that who we are is not taken away from us, but that how each of our beautiful, individual personalities is reoriented-- redirected from being self-centered to being God-centered. Who you are is not erased, but instead of being self-focused, our individuality is expressed in our focus on and service to the Almighty God who designed that individuality!

     Any actual changes to your personality after you become a christian--any part of "You" that God prunes away is just chaff.  He is not taking away your personality. He is just "Buffing the rough and dirty ore off the gemstone" and revealing the true diamond that is you!

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