Becoming Who You Are — Hal Lindsey

Becoming What You Are Through God’s Word

I want to talk about something that has meant more to my life than perhaps any other thing the Lord has taught me. And I just, for lack of a better name, call it Becoming What You Are. It has to do with something that was set forth in a book that was circulated widely a few years ago.

It was called Psycho-Cybernetics. Now, many points of Psycho-Cybernetics were true, but I feel that there were a number of things that were borrowed from the Bible. But how you achieved the new self-image was really not the biblical way.

What I want to talk about this morning, though, is the very real message that the Bible gives to us about actually becoming what you are and changing your self-image to what God says you really are. You know, whether we realize it or not, and I'm sure the majority of people don't fully realize it, is that we have a very complete mental image of ourselves.

In our subconscious mind, we've been developing a kind of a mental blueprint of what we are. And this has been achieved by our own interpretation of our various experiences through life. We've experienced many things.

We have had good experiences, bad experiences. But of every experience that we've had, we have an interpretation. And this goes down into our subconscious mind, and we form a mental image of ourselves based on that.

All of our actions and behaviors are really determined by what we think we are. And it's very difficult to act any way other than what you conceive yourself to be. Now this is paramount to understand, if you're going to understand what God has done for you, and understand how he wants to effect a change.

The Plastic-Surgery Illustration of a Changed Self-Image

I think one of the best illustrations of this is one of the case histories that was listed in Psycho-Cybernetics. In this book, the man who actually wrote it was, first of all, a plastic surgeon. And he tells of how a member of a royal family from somewhere in Europe came to him.

He was a prominent plastic surgeon in New York. And this girl was the ugly duckling of the family. She had a sister who was very beautiful, but she always was considered, especially by herself, the ugly duckling of the family.

And one of the big problems is that she had a hooked nose. And so the doctor agreed to operate and to change her nose and a few other minor changes in her features. The doctor operated, and of course her face was swabbed in bandages for a few days.

But then came the critical moment, and the doctor already knew from past experiences that this would be a critical moment, because as he removed the bandages, he wanted to watch her expression when he showed her the mirror.

Well, he took the bandages off, and the doctor himself was really startled by what a change had been made in this girl's appearance. Because as he took those bandages off, he found that she was absolutely beautiful.

This had just completely changed her appearance, and she was just beautiful. Well, he took a mirror, and he held it up to her, and she looked intently into the mirror for about 15 seconds before registering any real expression.

And then she began to cry. And she said, you see, it didn't work. And the doctor said, now look carefully. And she looked carefully, and she said it didn't work. This girl had such a complete and tenacious self-image of being ugly.

And she even had thought that she was uglier than she really was. But this was such a tenacious self-image that even presented with the fact of the fact that she looked different, she couldn't accept it.

She still conceived herself to be what she had always been. She, through this subconscious mental image, she just could not overcome the fact that she was different. And so the doctor had to begin to work with her.

And as a matter of fact, this is how Dr. Maltz shifted from being exclusively a plastic surgeon to becoming somewhat of a psychologist. Because in case after case where he changed a person's appearance, he would find that they still thought they looked the same way.

And he would have to convince them that they were different. It took him over six months to convince this girl that she was really what she was. And he said that when she finally saw in the mirror what was really there, that her behavior, her personality changed overnight.

It was radical and it was a complete change of personality. Now why? Well, because this girl conceived herself to be ugly, she acted a certain way around people. She was always trying to build herself up because she never thought that she was good enough for people to accept.

She kind of hung back in society because she felt that people really wouldn't want to know her. After all, in her own self-image, she was not worth knowing. And so even though she was changed after this operation, she still acted the same way.

But the moment that she realized that she was different, she began to immediately act differently. She began to have a self-confidence. She began to have a confidence about meeting people. She began to have a confidence about everything in life.

She began to think of herself as a success instead of as a failure. Now, I have a more graphic illustration of this and something much more close to my heart because I have twin daughters. They're ten years old now, but about three years ago, one of my twins named Jenny began to get horrible grades in school, and especially in math.

She could not seem to grasp the very simplest facts in math. And she brought home a report card that just startled both my wife and I. She flunked math, and we began to sit and talk to her. The other twin was very good in math.

And so we began to talk to her about it and to try to see what the problem was. Well, it seems that it went back to a situation where the teacher said, Jenny, I guess you're one of those who just isn't good at math.

And she began to develop a self-image. And, of course, it was confirmed by her bad grades. And the more it was confirmed, the worse she got. So she developed a self-image that she couldn't learn math, and therefore she couldn't learn math.

Now, it took us a while, but we began to build her confidence and to work with her. But the first thing we did was say, don't try to be good at math. Just recognize that you can be good at math. And we began to change that self-image.

And do you know something? She is far superior to the other twin now. She has become tremendous at math. And as a matter of fact, we have another problem now. Robin, who's the other twin, who is a naturally good student.

I mean, she just picks things up like that so easily. And she likes to study, at least she used to. And Jenny was the twin that, you know, had to study a little more. But she's bright, it's just she wants to play all the time.

She doesn't want to settle down. She's more like I was. And so Robin began to see that Jenny got all of the attention because she got bad grades. And so Robin just quit. And so now we're giving her lots of attention because she's making bad grades.

But it's a deliberate thing. But all of these things go back to self-image. And it is a known fact that you just cannot consistently, and there's the key, you cannot consistently act differently than you conceive yourself to be.

Paul’s Epistles Tell Believers Who They Are in Christ

Now you say, that sounds like, I didn't come here this morning, Hal, to hear a lecture on psychology, especially elementary psychology. Well, I certainly didn't come here to give you one either. But I think this is a principle that the Bible talked about long before Freud or Maltz or any of these people.

It's important to understand that without going into all of the technical details, the Scripture does talk about and does deal with your self-image first and foremost. For instance, have you ever noticed in the epistles of Paul, for instance, how that the first part of every letter begins how?

What does he do? The first half in some of them and the first part in at least a number of them. What does Paul do? Huh? Well, in a sense he does, but it's a very special way that he does. He tells them what they are.

And there'll be a phrase that's connected with it in every instance. In Christ. In Christ. He says, you're holy and without blame before God in Christ. Well, is that a myth or is he telling the truth?

He talks about us having an inheritance with Christ that we're going to share with him forever. He talks about us being made a new creature in Christ. Now, is all of this just a bunch of words or is it true?

And if it is true, what significance does it have to us? It has a tremendous amount of significance. Because, you see, God first begins to deal with you and tell you what he has already made you the moment that you receive Christ and he puts you into union with his Son.

Turn with me to 2 Corinthians 5, verse 17. Now, if you have the approved version, that's page 279. The approved version is the New American Standard Bible, which is the best that's ever been put in the English language.

2 Corinthians 5, verse 17. Or, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things passed away. Behold, a few things have become new. Is that what it says? Behold, all things have become new.

Now, this verse is so staggering that most people look at it and they say, man, that's neat. But they'll either just sort of put it out of their minds or they will say, well, a few things are made new.

But very few take this verse literally. And why do very few people take it literally? I'll tell you why. Because after we become believers, we still have something within us that keeps tempting us and keeps dragging us to do the things that are not God's will.

As a matter of fact, I remember when I first became a believer, for the first time in my life, I noticed a tremendous civil war within my soul. I had noticed the pull of certain twinges of conscience before I was a believer.

But never anything like I sensed after I became a believer in Jesus Christ. Because after the experience of knowing Christ, I became very aware of what God wants in my life. And I also became very aware of something within me that kept drawing me away from God, kept tempting me to do things that were contrary to God's will.

And so I experienced a tremendous tug-of-war, a tremendous civil war within. And so I would look at a verse like this and say, well, either this verse is not true or I'm not a Christian. Because all things are not new as far as I can see.

Rejecting Guilt-Driven Attempts to Change

And I happened to be going to a certain church in the South, which shall remain nameless, but it's one of the largest denominations in the South. And the emphasis of the preaching was to sort of dedicate the flesh to try harder to be what God wants me to be.

And the preaching was constantly sort of using a kind of a guilt motivation. You know, why aren't you like this? Here's what you ought to be, now why aren't you like that? And so they'd lay a big guilt trip on us.

And then they would talk about all of the things that I ought to be. And it was sort of an avalanche of ought-to-be's. And it was always an emphasis of do, do, do, do, do, with not enough of how to do thrown in to where you could even tell it.

And so how this filtered down to me was that I was continually rededicating my life by walking forward. I was continually making vows to God that I was going to try harder. And I tried harder and I failed more.

I coined the phrase in those days, Avis Christianity, we try harder. And that's why I was always second best. But I'll tell you one thing, as far as being available to God and as far as wanting to do the will of God, no one could fault me on that, I'd make 100 on that.

But the misery and the frustration kept piling up until I came to a crisis point where I said, I don't know whether I want to be a Christian. If this is what it is, I don't know whether I want to be one.

Because I've never been a person who can kind of just halfway go at something and if it doesn't work out, I'm not very disappointed. No, I'm the kind of person who goes all out and therefore if it doesn't work, I'm so disappointed I'm ready to get rid of it.

And so under that kind of tutelage, I came to the point in life where I was sincerely trying with all of my heart and I'll tell you, the more I tried, the more I failed, the guiltier I got, the more I vowed, the more I failed.

Because you see, God doesn't want us to vow that we will try harder. He wants us to first recognize that he has already made us something entirely new. That the real you is something that is already holy and without blame before him in love.

The real you has been transferred from being a slave to sin to being a slave to righteousness, according to Romans 6, 17. You are now a slave of righteousness. Now that's why you want to serve God. Now how did he make us a slave of righteousness?

The New Birth and the Indwelling Holy Spirit

Through two great doctrines, which are facts. Number one, through the new birth. The moment that you believe in Jesus Christ, you are given a new self, which has within it a nature that always wants to follow God and the spirit of the living God, the Holy Spirit, comes to dwell in this new self.

He gives us in this new birth a whole new dimension of life, which is spiritual life, God's life. And we can know and perceive God as a person. We can relate to him as a person when we're born again. And so we have been made something that really wants to follow God.

And the real you, as a Christian, will always want to follow God. And 1 John 3 says the real you never sins. Let's look at that. Hold your place here, though. Hold your place and turn to 1 John 3. Verse 9.

1 John 3, verse 9. No one who is born of God practices sin. All right, now in the original Greek, the word practice is in the present tense, which is a tense that means continuous action. And so the idea here is no one who is born of God will habitually practice sin.

No one will keep on practicing sin as a habit of life. You can't just do it carelessly anymore. You can sin as a Christian, but you can't be careless about it. You will be concerned about it. All right, now why is this?

He goes on to say, because his seed abides in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. All right, now the seed that is put in the Christian is born of God, and the he, after it says his seed abides in him, refers to this new self that is born within us.

And it's talking about the new self, and it says he cannot sin. And so there is a part of every Christian which absolutely cannot sin, doesn't want to sin, and always wants to follow God. In other words, God has planted himself within our souls, and that part of God's life is a new self which always wants to follow God, which will be miserable when you sin, and which will always want to follow him.

Putting on the New Self in Ephesians 4

Now, that is the new creation that's within you. And this new self that you have been made is holy and without blame. It does not ever sin. It doesn't want to. All right, turn with me to Ephesians chapter 4, where we learn more about the new self.

Ephesians chapter 4, verse 23. Let's begin with verse 22. That in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self which in the likeness of God has been created in what?

In righteousness and holiness of truth. Put on the new self which is in the likeness of God and it has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Now, to illustrate what we're talking about here, laying aside the old self, putting on the new self, let's go back to this case of the princess who had the plastic surgery.

All right, now when she first looked at the mirror and she said it didn't work, what was her problem? She still had the old self, didn't she? Her old self was her mental image of herself. All right, was the image of her old self true?

Not anymore. No. But you see, even though she had been changed, she still had the image of the old self. Now, as long as she had the image of the old self, how did she act? Like the old self. Now, God says that you have been made new.

The real you does not sin. The real you has been created in the likeness of God in righteousness and holiness of truth. Is that true? All right, is it true of you? Absolutely. Listen, whatever God says is true of you, whether you feel like it or not.

No matter what your past history says, if God says something is true, it's true. As a matter of fact, the most true thing about us is what God says is true about us. Wouldn't you say that? We do believe in the inspiration of the scripture.

We do believe it's the infallible word of God. All right, if God says this is true, it's true. All right, then what's the problem? Most of us are still going around with the old self image. Now, what's the old self image like?

What's the old self like? The old self was corrupted. The old self loved to sin. The old self wanted to go its own way. The old self was selfish and self-centered. That's all it could be. The old self might have been mentally sick, something a lot of people don't know about me.

Personal Testimony of Renewal and Healing

I was very much mentally ill when I accepted Christ. I'd lived five years on the brink of suicide and very nearly took my life several times. And when I came to know Jesus Christ, I was so emotionally damaged, I was so mentally ill, that my expectation was that I would spend the rest of my life in a sanitarium.

Now, when I became a believer in Jesus Christ, everything didn't disappear overnight. In fact, I floundered around as a Christian for about a year, and I didn't go to church for about a year. I just read the Bible.

So there was some improvement in my life. I began to have an assurance that Jesus Christ really was in my life. Then I started going to this certain church I mentioned, and then I very nearly really cracked up because of the guilt of failure.

And then I went to hear a Bible teacher who taught the Bible verse by verse. The first message I ever heard him teach was about the Suez Crisis in 1957. It was a prophecy message. Well, that got me convinced that the Bible was absolutely the word of God.

Then I began to listen to him teach out of the epistles of Paul, where he happened to be, and I began to get a new self-image. I began to get the truth of 2 Corinthians 5, where it says, If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation.

Old things are passed away. Well, what I did was take and apply that to my situation. The old self was mentally sick and riddled with problems which were so complicated, the only hope I would have had in the world would have been to go to a psychiatrist for the rest of my life, and probably wound up taking my life anyway.

But I began to see myself as a new person and that my mind could be renewed. Well, these things meant a lot different than most of the people who were hearing them. But I believed what God said, and God began to give me a new mind, which was really mine.

I began to see myself as something all new in Jesus Christ, and I wasn't believing a myth because God said it was true. And you know something, I found this. Whatever you count true, which God has said, becomes true in your experience.

First, you don't feel like it. I didn't feel like it when I first began to believe these promises. But in spite of my experience, in spite of the terrible periods of depression, I would say, I don't have to be this way, Lord.

I am a new creation in Jesus Christ. I believe you. Now, you put up, or shut up. I've always been that kind of person, and God has been gracious with me. But you know something? God put up with me and everything else, but he also kept his word.

And I began to experience a sense of peace, a sense of a new person. And this was absolutely fantastic. Today, I'm not plagued with those things at all, haven't been for years. And God just erected a new person over the old person that I was.

And the new person has in it the divine viewpoint of life which has been constructed on a study of the Scripture. But not just studying it as if it was something out there that I could tell other people, but studying it as something that is true of me, that I could apply to myself.

Depending on the Holy Spirit to Live Out the New Identity

And the big problem, I found, is this. How do you put on the new self? By beginning to see yourself as God says you are. And regardless of whether you fail God today, yesterday, and day after day before, you begin to say to yourself, I don't have to act that way.

I am a new creation who can trust the Holy Spirit to work in me God's righteousness. I don't have to try to be what God wants me to be. I already have been made a new person, and I can depend upon the Holy Spirit to make me what I already am.

And to put down any invasion of the old self that tries to take over my life. And it's a moment by moment believing that what God says is true of you in spite of how you feel, and depending on the Holy Spirit to make it an experience.

Now this is the pattern that the Scripture says, and it transforms life. It transforms lives, I don't say that theoretically, it's transformed mine. And God took me out of an horrible pit, as the psalmist says, and put a new song in my mouth, even praises to God.

And God said many shall see it and turn to fear the Lord and trust him reverently. And that's why I like to share my own experience. Because the Lord said if you share how he took you out of the pit, that he will encourage others to believe him, too.

The Limits of Self-Effort in Spiritual Change

Now, I want to read something from a psychiatrist named Dr. Knight Dunlap. This man, to my knowledge, is not a Christian. But he formulated this statement on the basis of many clinical tests and many case histories.

Now this quote is so fantastic that it thrilled me. Now this is what Dr. Dunlap says, not on the basis of the Bible, but on the basis of many clinical cases. He says, and I quote, Self-effort is the one big deterrent to either breaking a habit or learning a new one.

Did you get that? Self-effort is the one big deterrent to either breaking a habit or learning a new one. Making an effort to refrain from the habit actually reinforces the habit. The Christians would learn that, and that some Bible teachers would learn it.

Exalting people to get self-effort into the act and try to change their habits only reinforces the habit. How many people have I seen try to stop smoking, for instance? Now there's a goody. A particular church I attended in the South said that if you smoked, you probably weren't a Christian.

Not that smoking is right. I'm not saying that. They set up a whole list of habits which you, if you became a Christian, you had to stop immediately, or else you might not really be a Christian. You couldn't drink, smoke, dance, go to movies, or play cards.

We used to call them the big five. Well, since I was a former riverboat captain, and that's what I was doing when I came to know Christ, I was a tugboat captain on the Mississippi River, I practiced all five of those things, plus a few more.

Since I lived in the French Quarter for five years, I had them all. And some they hadn't thought about. But when I kind of drifted into that church, and I found that if, you know, if you did these things, you might not be a believer, I made a vow to God I would stop.

And you know something? I stopped all of those things in the flesh. And I managed to keep from doing those things for quite a while. But you know what happened in this place? I found that the real spiritual Christians would get up and share how they had stopped doing certain things.

And I saw that if you really wanted to be spiritual, what you did was tell what you'd given up and appear humble about it. Well, I got to where I could share glowing reports of what I had given up for the Lord, and still look humble.

And I got proud I was so humble. I used to weep about what a humble guy I was. And then, as all things like that do, they begin to backlash, and the old habits began to come back after a while. You know, after the kick of the praise of the people wore off, the things started coming back.

Well, there's nothing wrong with getting rid of those habits. And I believe that the Holy Spirit will deal with many habits in our life as we grow. But there's one thing I've learned, that if you've been a Christian for about 15, 20, 30 years, don't expect the Lord to suddenly deliver a newborn Christian of the habits that took him 20 or 30 years to kick out of your life.

In other words, don't expect them to do something you weren't able to be led to do. Recognize that babies, spiritually, are babies. It takes a while. But the Lord must work from the inside. The Lord must be able to work in our lives from the standpoint of seeing that we are a new person, and then the Holy Spirit being set free to work on our inner desires.

And then the Holy Spirit, one by one, will begin to put his finger on certain things in our life that are displeasing to us. And it won't just be external things, such as drinking and smoking, etc. It will also be gossip.

It will also be character assassination. It will also be stretching the truth, or bearing false witness, or spreading rumors, or causing division among the cisterns. I always have a little trouble shifting from talking to men to girls here.

But the Lord will begin to put his finger within on certain things. And you know, when the Lord says, OK, this ought to go, then you can depend on the Holy Spirit and count it true that you are already set free from any bondage to any habit.

And yet you don't try to put it out of your life yourself. You see that you are free from being in bondage to any habit because you've been crucified with Christ and you no longer live. And the life that you now live is the life of the Son of God.

And so you see that you already are a new person who has been freed from all bondage to all habits. It's just a matter of claiming it and letting the Holy Spirit enforce it. And so you depend on the Holy Spirit, not human resources, to put things out of your life.

And when the Holy Spirit puts them out, they're really out. And you can't go around and brag what you did because you didn't do it. The Holy Spirit did it. And what he does is a beautiful thing. Now, turn with me to Romans chapter 7, verse 15.

Romans 7 and the Conflict Between Flesh and Spirit

Now, I'm reading from the New American Standard Bible. It may be just a little different from some of yours, but I think it'll all be very close. Verse 15, For that which I am doing, I do not understand.

For I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not wish to do, I agree with the law, confessing that it is good. Now, have you ever been in this place where the things you do, you don't even understand?

And the things you keep wanting to do, you don't do. The things you hate, you keep doing. I call it Christian schizophrenia. And you keep being prodded by God's commandments, the law of Moses and so forth.

You keep being prodded that certain things are wrong. And you just, with all your heart, try to live up to these external commandments. And what happens is you don't understand what's going on, but you keep breaking them.

You keep falling short. You want to with all your heart, but you keep falling short. Now, Paul says that through this, this is an experience of the Apostle Paul personally, after he was a believer. He's giving us an autobiography in Romans 7 of his own experience after he was a young believer.

And he tells us how he discovered certain things about himself. Now, he says, the fact that I keep wanting to do the things I, or I keep wanting to do certain things and not doing, and I keep doing the things I hate.

He says, this makes me see that the law is good. Now, why does it make him see the law is good? Well, because it shows that the law is God's perfect righteousness and perfect standard of righteousness.

And he sees that he in himself keeps falling short of it. So it's accomplishing its job. And it's good in that it shows us where we fail, but it's also good in that the law keeps probing into our soul and it keeps forcing us to see something.

And Paul tells how he discovered something within his soul as a Christian that he didn't know was still there. And what was that? Well, let's look at verse 17. He says, So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which indwells me.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh, for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I wish I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not wish.

But if I am doing the very thing I do not wish, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. Now actually, this is a passage that I read over for years and years, even as a victorious Christian, and didn't fully understand what it was saying.

I had a natural human blindness to it. What is this passage really saying? It is saying that when I sin, I am no longer the one doing it. You see that? Who is the I in this passage? The I. I am no longer doing it.

The new self. So why do you sin as a Christian? If you're a new creature, all things have been made new, and the real you wants to always follow God. Where does the sin come from? The old flesh. Or as it says here, sin in the singular, and sin in the singular refers to the nature of sin.

Sometimes it's called the flesh, sometimes in this passage it's just called sin in the singular. But whenever it's called sin in the singular, in Romans 6, 7, and 8, it's speaking of the nature of sin.

The root nature with which we were born, which we still have as a believer, and which still tries to bring the old self back as the pattern of behavior. Now, it says, so now, no longer, verse 17, 7, 17, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which indwells me.

So Paul discovered, through the law, forcing him to sin more, really. The law kept prodding him, and the more it prodded him, the more he tried to keep it, and the more he tried to keep it, the more the old sin rebelled.

And the more sin rebelled, the more he did sin. So the law kept prodding him and saying, hey Paul, you can't make it on your own. You can't live the Christian life by your own efforts. And Paul kept saying, yes I can!

All I need to do is dedicate myself a little more. And so boy, Paul would come back bloody but not vowed, and he would keep trying to keep the law, and trying to keep the law, and he kept crying with all of his might to be what God wanted him to be.

And what did he experience? The things I hate, I keep doing. The things I want to do, I don't do. I don't understand myself. And so he would come back for more. I must not be putting it together right, Lord.

Just give me a few more days, and I will keep your law. And he would keep trying and trying, and finally, you know what happened? Verse 25, or verse 24. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?

This is the great Apostle Paul, who became the greatest Christian that ever lived. I'm excluding Jesus from that. But Paul became the greatest Christian that ever lived. He was the man who single-handedly took the gospel to the outer limit of the Roman Empire in his one lifetime.

But here he was, before he discovered the principle of self-image and walking and being filled with the Holy Spirit. Here he is, he's trying to live for God, and he tried real hard. I guess I'm patterned like him.

I throw myself into it, so the disappointment is much more overwhelming than the usual. Paul tried so hard that he finally said, Oh, wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?

Now that was the great Apostle Paul as a Christian. You know what he was saying? What do you mean when you say, get me out of this body? What do you think that means? He wanted to die. He finally came to the place where he was so miserable, he said, Lord, just take me home.