Be Yourself

Remember playing Follow the Leader? The key was to copy everything that the leader was doing. What about Simon Says? The goal is to do everything that Simons says to do or you are out. Both of these games you are doing something others do or tell you to do. As we grow up many times we find ourselves doing the same thing. Following the latest fashions. Listening to someone’s suggestions on the latest talk show, then trying to do them for yourself. All of this leads to discontent. The trend one week is out the next, so you have to get the latest in fashion the following week. What works for one person might not work for you leaving you to feel like a failure.

God has not created us to be what someone says we should be or follow what others are doing to be content. We don’t have to become what someone wants us to be in order to be content with who we are. Even in the church, Paul makes it a point in 1 Corinthians 7:17, that we shouldn’t make rules on how a person should be when they worship Jesus.

Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him.

If we can’t be ourselves in worshipping  Jesus then where can we be ourselves? Paul is saying you don’t have to be someone you are not when you come to church. You don’t have to get all dressed up to come to church you can come just as you are. There are no set of words that you have to talk.

When we are ourselves, living the life that God has set for us, we are our strongest because we are depending on him for our strength.

 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Only when we live the life that God has set before us and draw our strength from Jesus can we find contentment in who we are.