To Thine Own Self Be True – The Real You

The core of our faith is Jesus Christ. The expression of our faith is a life of service to Him.

Every Monday we post something about maintaining your sexual purity.

To regular readers, please note that I apologize for my absence last week. My mother is seriously ill and I’ve been having to commute to her home to help out. So please excuse the delay in postings – we will stay on track from now on.
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The Real You

“To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, Thou can not then be false to any man.” – Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’

“I can’t help being who I am!”, my client screamed. We were in the middle of our third counseling session together, and he was contemplating his decision to stop using pornography and prostitutes. His sexual behavior had become such a primary part of his life, though, that leaving it behind felt impossibly unnatural. “It’s my nature as a guy to want this,” he argued. “If I stop, aren’t I just trying to be somebody I’m not?”

As a Christian man struggling with sexual temptations, you may be asking the same question. You may, in fact, be considering a complete abandonment of the faith instead of abandoning your behavior. The immediate payoff for such a decision is gratification. You will no longer be denying yourself the “right” to do what seems natural to you. And that may really seem more important to you than Christianity itself. But then, what is your concept of Christianity? Did God promise you that, having been converted, you would be finished with personal struggles? Was there anything in Christ’s teaching implying total fulfillment in this life? Is Christianity a religious form of therapy designed to ensure the happiness of its followers? Does it make you angry to even ask these questions? If so, you may have forgotten that the core of our faith is the Person Jesus Christ, and the expression of our faith is a life of service to Him, not ourselves.

Jesus made this clear:

“If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” (Matthew 16:24).

The core of our faith is Jesus Christ. The expression of our faith is a life of service to Him.

Regarding our attitude toward this primary but overlooked aspect of Christianity, Francis Schaeffer, in his book “True Spirituality”, comments:

“It is not a matter of waiting until we no longer have strong sexual desires, but rather, when we are surrounded by a world that grabs everything, we are to understand what Jesus means when He talks about denying ourselves that which is not rightfully ours.”

Ironically, then, abandoning the faith in a quest for personal happiness may well be the way to sabotage that very quest. Remember, if you are a believer, you have experienced the rebirth described in John 3:16, which is not easily shrugged off. You were given the seed of God Himself: “Having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God.”  (1 Peter 1:23). That being the case, it is questionable whether you will ever be happy in a backslidden state. The dissatisfaction you will feel apart from fellowship with Christ may well outweigh whatever dissatisfaction you’re experiencing now as a struggling Christian.

You might argue, “But I am who I am. That’s my nature, and I can’t be at peace unless I’m true to myself.” I would argue the same point, changing the noun. You are indeed who you are—a Christian. That’s your nature, and you can’t be at peace unless you’re true to yourself.