Be Who You Are

There are billions of people here on Planet Earth.  Billions more have lived in times past.  Out of those billions of people, how many of them are you?  And how many of them are you supposed to be?

The answer to both questions is, of course, Zero.  None.

You are who you are.  Nobody else is you, and you are nobody else.  It's meant to be that way!  God designed it that way.  He's such a magnificent Creator!  He knows how to make billions and billions of unique individuals.  He didn't make you to be like any of them.  He made you to be you, and He made other people to be who they are.  There is something so incredible in all of this:  We are individuals and yet we belong to God and we belong to each other.  When each of us is who we are, it all works together.

God Himself makes it work together in a similar fashion to how the individual parts of a human body function:

Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. Rom 12:4-5, NIV

So be who you are.  You are free to be who you are!  You were created by your Creator to be who you are!  He didn't make a mistake when He made you.  He made you to be who you are and He made you in such a way that you, as you are, fit into a much larger body.  You are a not only a part of that body, but you are a vital part of that body, along with all the other parts of that body.  (So allow them to be who they are, as well!)

God's not asking you to be like someone else.  He's not asking you to be something that you're not.  That would be like a body's brain sending a signal to the knuckle of a thumb to act like a lung!  In reality, a lung has certain functions that a knuckle can't even begin to try to emulate.  A knuckle is meant to be a knuckle, not a lung!  And it's the other way around, too.

You are special to God.  You are His beloved child.  The Holy Spirit works in and through you just as He works in and through all the members of Christ's body.  He has created many different parts to fit into His body.  You are unique, as is everyone else!  There is such a vast diversity in the body of Christ, and while we can each appreciate and admire what God is doing in and through others, we've each been called to be the unique person that we are.

God's not impressed with any member of His body any more than He's impressed with any other member.  Hello?  He made them all!  And He made them all to function together as one body!  God thinks highly of each member, because He is the one who created them all, for the sake of the body as a whole.  No one is greater, no one is lesser.  We are individuals and we are one.  God takes great pleasure in each of us being who we are.

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Here is the podcast version of this blog post: Be Who You Are.
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