Let me start by posing a question. When you look into yourself, do you see yourself spiritually or do you see yourself humanistically?

So many people claim they know themselves but do they really. They may know the self they created but do they know who God created them to be. Most likely, unless they have lived a while in pursuit of God they know only the self they were able to construct and have yet to discover the person God intended them to be.

Life takes it toil on people and for various reasons they develop characteristic in their personality that are not in-line with what God created them to be. People also have personal desires that they believe will bring them fulfillment, happiness, success, popularity, etcetera and in order to achieve those personal desires they recreate themselves into whatever they believe is necessary to help them obtain those desires. Then there are those individuals who construct who they are around what someone else wants them to be in order to fulfill a secondary person’s desire to live vicariously through that person or either create the person that they deem acceptable to them. None of this is God’s Will for people, no matter how well intended it might be.

When people try to self-create, either based on their own desires or the desires of another, they are entering into humanistic behavior. A person who acts with this comportment as a way of life is living in a humanistic manner because they see themselves humanistically. It is all about them. What they want. What they believe. What they can achieve. What they deem worthy. What they see as important and so on.

Humanism per the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is defined as follows:

“3: a doctrine, attitude, or way of life centered on human interests or values; especially: a philosophy that usually rejects supernaturalism and stresses an individual’s dignity and worth and capacity for self-realization through reason”

There are major drawbacks associated with this type of living.

One – Self-reliance, which self-realization requires, is a myth for one thing. A person cannot rely solely upon one’s self in this life. Everyone will need other people at some point and time in some manner. No one person knows how to do everything and is capable of doing everything.

Two – A person’s own knowledge, their own values, their own insight, and their own intellect can only take them so far. At some point each of those attributes will be insufficient for the task. Then what will happen? One can grasp for insight or knowledge from another human being but then where is their self-reliance; additionally, other people’s knowledge and insight will only go so far as well.

Three – Humanistic living leaves a hole and emptiness in a person’s life. Since they are only capable of doing and accomplishing so much in life they never feel quite like they have reached their goal, they never quite fill fulfilled in life. This is because they have set up for themselves a false god, themselves.

When a person views themselves in a spiritual manner, as a human but also a spiritual being that God created, they view life through different eyes. They view their life, hopefully, as a means of God expressing Himself through them to the world. There heart is to live as the individual God intended them to be not the person they would like to be.

Now let’s make it more personal…

Are any of us even close to perfect at living this way? No, not at all. However, the purpose of these writings, the purpose of teaching, and the purpose of exhorting or encouraging one another is not to say, ‘Hey look at me I am perfect and this is how you can be perfect as well.’ No, the purpose is to lift up the Standard of how God intends for things to be done in our lives no matter how well or how poorly we might be living out those truths at the time.

There are far too many people who remain quite about what God’s Principles, Truths, and Standards are because they fear being judged for their own mistakes or being called a hypocrite but God will judge us much more severely for what we do not say, write, teach, or proclaim than for what we did proclaim yet, often failed to perform sufficiently. Rest assured precious Child of God, He will also judge those who stand in judgment of you as a hypocrite more severely than He will judge you falling short of His Standard when He knew you were trying and it was your heart’s desire to live according to His Standard.

Most people spend a good portion of the first half of their lives trying to live humanistically, even those who call themselves Christians. They say they are Christians but God has little control over their hearts or lives. Then they reach a point in life where all their efforts have only drained them, all of their success leaves them lacking, and all their well laid plans are in ruin. Then as a Christian or as a person, a non-Christian, seeking answers they call out to God either in bitter anger or confusion seeking to understand where things went wrong, especially if things looked so right due to worldly success. People just love to pride themselves on “their” accomplishments.

At this point God often has to point out that this, that, and the other was never His Plan for their lives. He never designed them for the task or profession or ministry they have undertaken. He never wanted them to move to so and so. He never wanted them to marry the person they married. He never intended them to be living as they are living; they themselves have made those choices. They are living a carnal life though humanistic values that have nothing to do with what He created them to be.

The only way out of such a trap is to surrender, surrender to God everything in your life and if need be let Him take it all away. However, make sure He is making the changes, directing your steps, and doing the taking away. Let Him know, you surrender to Him and His Authority in your life as your Creator. Let Him know you only want to see yourself through spiritual eyes from here forward, meaning you only want live as He intended you to live, be what He intended you to be, and fulfill your purpose based only on what HE SAYS is His Purpose for you.

Will a person be able to change everything they have created in their lives through humanistic means and allow God to recreate them solely based upon what was His intended Purpose for their lives? Perhaps not fully. Let me explain.

From the moment we were born each decision we made either propelled our lives in God’s intended direction or altered His Will for our lives. With each alteration our overall life was changed.

God is sovereign yes, but He allows freewill and will not interfere with that freewill. Once we repent and surrender our lives to His Original Purpose, He will act on our behalf to correct as many mistakes as is still doable but it does not mean He will relocate us to where He truly wanted us to live or that He would have us divorce the person He never intended for us to marry or that He would have us leave our profession we have chosen and invested years of service in. Altering these life choices must only be done after heavy prayer and consideration and only with God’s approval and at His direction. However, the moment you surrender and begin to daily seek Him for only His Will for your life and to only live as the person He originally created you to be, He swoops in to bring as much of your life as is possible back to His original design or as close as is still possible with the balance of life you have yet to live.

Living our way is humanistic and only gets us what we can get in life. Living God’s way is spiritual and will get us all that God wants us to have in life. Living humanistically limits our knowledge and insight. Living spiritually makes available to us all the knowledge and insight of God. You have to ask yourself why in the world we would ever have wanted to sacrifice living spiritually so that we might live humanistically.

Spiritual/Political Disclaimer:

This blog will not be for the faint of heart or the easily offended. It will not be in any way politically correct. It will make every effort to share the truth in love, [Ephesians 4:11-16], to a decaying and dying society and church. I share what I share not to hurt, harm, or offend any person[s] or group; I do it because Christ’s Standard and Truth is not being represented by enough of His Followers and I do it out of love. I love enough to tell His Truth.

Ephesians 4:11-16 NKJV

¹¹And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, ¹²for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, ¹³till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; ¹⁴that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, ¹⁵but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— ¹⁶from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.