Getting to Know You

Satan Doesn’t Want You to Know Yourself

Satan tries to distract you from getting to know yourself. If you truly knew yourself, you’d know God. When you accept Christ into your life, the Holy Spirit becomes a part of you. So, if you really knew yourself, you’d have to know God because He is a part of you. God resides in you.

Satan does not like God, so he tries to pull you away from yourself in an effort to pull you away from God. When you deeply know God, then you gain more insight into the characteristics of Satan (which are the exact opposite of God’s) because you understand more of who God is and who He is not. As you learn more about who Satan really is, he becomes less attractive. When you truly know God, you begin to hate Satan. As your relationship with God grows, your ability to overcome Satan becomes greater.

God knows you more than you know yourself.

God created you, therefore He knows more about you than you can know about yourself. He knows your greatest beauty. Satan tries to convince you to adjust or change that beauty, while God is the one that created you a certain way. He doesn’t want His craftiness hidden or manipulated. Instead, He knows its worth and purpose and desires for you to shine.

Unfortunately, most of us don’t know our true identity. We avoid learning who we really are for various reasons: Perhaps it’s easy to understand ourselves on the surface. If we really dug into our own personality, we might find some issues that we don’t want to deal with or some characteristics that we don’t like. These issues are painful and to face them means to face a past that haunts us. Or, it means we need to work to improve ourselves and become the person God actually wants us to be rather than hide behind whoever we’re most comfortable being in any particular moment. Learning our true identity may entail therapy or counseling – at the very least, some major soul searching and prayer.

If we really dug into who we truly are, then we have to know who God truly is too. We would have to spend time with Him, and that’s time consuming when we have tests to study for, papers to write, sports to practice, friends to hang out with, money to earn and family outings to attend. The beauty of spending time with God is that He’s the creator of time and He can support you through the process by providing for you in ways that you’re unable to provide for yourself.

Know Yourself

Rather than avoiding your true self, take some time to write down three things you’re doing to push your identity aside. They may be big, they may be small, but no matter the size, they’re keeping you from being the person God created you to be. Then, share these three things with trusted friends, mentors or family members. Ask them to help you overcome these areas in your life. Then, have them pray over you that God would give you the strength to overcome. It may take years to prevail, but once you admit that you’ve been avoiding your true identity, a weight will be lifted and you’ll feel less stressed about who you are and more refreshed in who God created you to be.