Who am I?

That which is feigned or artificial is a source of unbearable hindrance. Many people live in constant fear of exposing themselves and allowing an enemy or friend to obtain a glance into their inner poverty. Therefore they remain tense and can never really relax. Intellectuals remain tense for the fear of saying something stupid or uninteresting and thereby damaging their reputation or status. People who are frequent travellers, fear meeting someone who are able to tell or report more than them. The teacher fears those who knows more than him. And this doesn't just apply to non-Christians. Pastors can fear someone else addressing his congregation in a more powerful, effective and insightful manner than he himself can? Our hearts protect us against being reduced or feeling this way. This unnatural state is part of our sad inheritance of sin, and is being reinforced by the fast-paced times we are living in. The advertisements with which we are constantly bombarded, through various media, is based largely on the bad habit of us wanting to be someone which we are unable to be, without the advertised product. It has become very fashionable to offer “courses” to iron out some or other deficiency. And all this for the sake of self-appearance or to keep up appearances before others. Self-help books are being sold, clothes and cosmetics have always boomed and one appeals incessantly to be someone or strive to be someone which one actually is not. Being artificial is a curse which prevents us from being truthful. Before God and before people. Jesus offers us peace. Peace over ourselves and over the fear of missing out on something or being overlooked and ignored. Don't we know the fear of being unacknowledged? That people will see us in a way in which we don't want to see ourselves or have them see us? We feel toilsome and burdened when we regard the opinions and views of others over God's opinion of us: “Nothing in self, all in God.” That could be the motto for someone who knows that the world will never see him the way God sees him. For this reason, he stopped taking notice of what the world thinks. He has become peaceful because he allows God to give him his worth. He goes his way peacefully and leaves it up to God to defend him.

A meek person does not have an inferiority complex. On the contrary, but he has stopped deceiving himself. Such a person develops a kind humour concerning himself. He knows that he is exactly as weak and helpless as God says. However, he knows at the same time, that for God he is more important than an angel and, that he is able to do all things through Him who empowers him (Philippians 4:13). Jesus' method in meeting us is meekness (Matthew 11:29) and it is precisely this characteristic which the world does not exhibit. In the world people hit back and don't make allowances. People are presumptuous, cantankerous, arrogant and conceited. And those who don't believe something are steam-rolled. It is human to protect oneself from every setback and to minimize the bad opinion of others about us and expose it as a lie. We weigh every word on a gold scale, suffer under every imagined insult and due to our thoughts and our restless hearts, we don't come to peace. We should not take ourselves so seriously. Self-love takes a lot of effort if I envision myself as a little god whom I serve faithfully and it also gives others the opportunity to amuse themselves by ridiculing my idol. What I have brought before God in prayer, must not still continue to burden me when others point it out to me. Gentleness is the essence of Jesus and is the result of us progressing from appearing to being. Pride does not pay. The gentleness of Jesus is the peace for our souls. We may look upon the LORD Jesus Christ and thereby obtain peace beyond comprehension. The Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 3:1-3 “Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you? Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.” Amen.

Jörg Bauer