Discovering our false self is very important for spiritual growth. God wants to reveal our falseness and destroy our false or ideal self. Our false or ideal self is the “self” we created since childhood in order to avoid being rejected and instead be accepted by others. It includes all the inauthentic strategies we develop to cope with our world. Some people create a false self that always smiles and cooperates and agrees with everyone. Others create a false self that prefers to oppose and fight others; their false self is the “tough” self. Some create a false self that escapes rejection altogether by hiding behind hobbies or studies or career. There are endless varieties of false self and we all have our own individual version.
One very common version of the false self for Christians is the religious false self. This false self pretends that everything is okay inside us, that we don’t have major problems or weaknesses, and that we don’t struggle with trusting and loving God. We always try to look “good” spiritually.
With some people, their religious false self is obvious from the outside. But many of us wear our false self so deep inside that no one including ourself is aware of it. This is why it takes many years for some of us to realize we have deep anger or unbelief toward God. We don’t want to admit it because that destroys our false image of ourself. But many, if not most, mature believers I have known, including myself, discovered deep seated anger or unbelief towards God after many years as a Christian. We had to take a lot of time to get fully in touch with those emotions and continually express them to God. This leads to an honest relationship with God that allows His Spirit to change us down deep so that His wellsprings of life can flow through us. He will reveal the roots of our emotions and in time pull out the roots.
I would love to hear your ideas about false self. You are invited to leave your comments below, and answer any of these questions:
How much false self have you found in your life and what was it like?
How did you deal with your false self?
As you let go of your false self what positive changes have you seen in your life?
