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Bringing Glory To God Is Your Goal

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OUR DIFFERENT PERSONALITY STYLES

 

What is man that God is mindful of him?  We are wonderfully and fearfully made by God.  Psalm 139 is a beautiful passage of Scripture that refers to the creation of the inner person, the spirit of man, the soul of man, and physical being.  God created us individually.

          God created the first man, Adam, in His image and His likeness. (Gen. 1:26).  Adam was able to communicate freely with God because of his creation in God's image and likeness.  In Gen.5:3, Adam became the father of a son, in his own likeness, in his own image.  The fall of Adam and Eve left humanity separated from God because of their sin.  They had died spiritually to God and lost the true knowledge of God.  Fortunately, God made a promise to all of humanity to redeem humanity through the seed of the woman  (Gen. 3:15).  This promise refers to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ who has reconciled every believer to God through the Cross.  Whoever is a believer ‘in Christ’ is a new creation.  God has restored our relationship with Him through Christ, and has given us this ministry of restoring relationships.  In other words, God was using Christ to restore his relationship with humanity.  As new creations ‘in Christ’, we receive His Spirit.  Now we can freely receive everything we need through Christ.  If we are a new creation, why aren't we all like Christ?

          We were dead to God in our sin because we were born after the likeness of Adam.  But if we are a new creation ‘in Christ’, we have been born again after the likeness of Christ.  We now have the Spirit of Christ in us, the hope of Glory.  Unfortunately, we were conceived in sin and born after the likeness of Adam.  So until we received the Spirit of Christ, we learned to do after the nature we were born with, a corrupt nature.  The crucifixion of the Old Man with Christ gave us the Spirit of Christ living in us.  We have become like Christ.  We can freely communicate with God because we have the Spirit of God living in us.  Next, God designed our transformation into the image of Christ by the renewing of our mind. Through the Word of God, which announces every thing that Christ accomplished for us, His Spirit continues to work through us.  God personally created good works for you to walk into.  He created you for His good pleasure and to bestow the riches of Christ upon you.

          God alone created your inner being.  He knitted you together inside your mother.  God miraculously and amazingly created each believer.  God looked over our entire creation.  He is fully aware of your entire being -- body, soul, and spirit.  God knows your thoughts and the intents of your heart.  God has a plan for your life!

          Just as our bodies have many parts, in the same way, we are many individual personalities.  In His richness, God gave each of us different personalities, and all have different gifts to build up the body of Christ.  We are all unique.  We are a gift from God.  When we receive a new nature, God reveals the mystery of Christ in us and desires

to freely express Christ’s life through us.

          So what causes us to be so easily upset in trying  to do the will of God?   Do we act on the fact that the Old Man is dead?  The flesh resists the things of God’s Spirit.  Too often a believer is unaware that the flesh exists.  Unfortunately, many Christians do not understand this truth.  Jesus set us free from the Old Man to walk in the Spirit of Christ.  God set us free from the law of sin and death to live in the Spirit.  God wants us to know to that it is His entire 'do'ing that we are a new 'be'ing.  The old man and the corrupt nature were the results of the original fall from grace.

          We are influenced by the environment and our original families. We became damaged goods.  Everything that happened to us while coming to the knowledge and acceptance of Christ had an impact on our belief system.  The events that led up to our redemption all had an effect on our personality too.  Before our old man was crucified with Christ, we could only walk according to the pattern of this world, alienated from God. The first time, we were born after the likeness of Adam.  The second birth was spiritual; we were born again after the likeness of Christ.  We were born with a carnal nature; now we have a spiritual nature.  The problem is that many relate to the carnal nature more than our spiritual nature.

          God reconciled sinners to Himself through Christ.  God uses the church, and we are members individually of His body.  In Christ, God united us for His purpose of reconciling the world to Himself.  The church represents Jesus Christ and has the power and authority through Him to do the works that He designed for us. 

          The Word of God testifies of the works of Christ.  He came into the world to save sinners by destroying the works of the devil.  He commissions us to do the same works -- reconciling sinners to God.  The Great Commission is the real calling of every believer.  We all have a role to play and different gifts to use to bring about this great work.  The question is, 'Does every one come to Christ the same Way?'  The answer should be obvious.   Yes, we all come as individuals to Christ, through grace and faith by the workings of the Holy Spirit.

          No one can answer the call to salvation for you.  Everyone drawn by God must acknowledge Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.  God spoke to our hearts individually, but He, more often than not, used an individual in the church to witness about Christ's work on the Cross.  Then we made our personal commitment to God through faith in Jesus Christ.  Would you like to understand the person looking at you from the other side of the mirror?

 

 

WHO IS THE MAN IN THE MIRROR

 

          Who Am I?  I admit it, I did not really know.  So of course, my family does not know who I am either.  The quest to know and understand the real person others see and hear is relevant to every relationship.  So when I had the occasion to get a better insight into my world -- especially one that might actually help me in my personal life -- I took it. 

          Being an optimist I knew there was help for my family somewhere.  If I looked hard enough, I knew there would be some logical methods to make sense of the needs and wants I felt so deeply inside.  The quest was not very easy but once I started asking, seeking, and knocking on a few doors a light began to shine.  I came across a course based on a clinical approach to a person's temperament that would supposedly give an extremely accurate personality profile, so I enrolled in the course.

          When the course came in the mail I took it into my office hoping to find some needed answers.  One requirement was taking a personality questionnaire.  It astonished me when the report came back.  By the time I had read the profile, the truth began to set me free.  I was looking at myself clearly for the first time in my life.

          Now I know the truth about my style of communication.  I am unique, as different from everyone else, just like finger-prints.  This is not a big revelation to some people; but for me, I finally saw myself as others saw me.  Still skeptical, I let my better half, my spouse, read all about the guy she married.  She had to admit up until this point she never really knew the depth of my personal needs or wants.  We married fifteen years earlier and surprise, surprise, we did not really know a lot about each other.

          Turn about is fair play so she did a profile questionnaire too.  It was the beginning of the end when her report came back.  Unfortunately, I was not home at the time she read it.  She cried.  Then she threw it across the room.   She needed convincing before she would accept that it was her profile.  When I came home from work the next day, the reaction was slowly turning into a controlled response.  She was on the phone most of the morning. She asked her closest friends if the profile described her accurately.  The reply was a resounding yes!

          We spent a lot of time together reviewing her profile.  She needed the assurance that it was OK to have a style of relating to people that was often pessimistic.  When she understood everyone has strengths and weaknesses to their personality, it was a lot easier to accept one another.     

          It is important to understand the communication style of others.  Conversely, understanding the style of our communication is extremely important.  This became very evident after my spouse and teenage son found out they came from a similar mold.  Both of them began to iron out their differences because they understood each other's temperament.  They know and understand each other more deeply from the profile report generated.  Since we learned about each other’s  personal styles of relating, our home life finally found the way to peace and understanding.  We know what our needs and wants are so now we can find ways to meet them.

          To introduce the Temperament Analysis Profile (TAP), the best description is that it is a tool used by counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists to reveal your desires for social interaction.  There is no personality better  than another.  Everyone is an individual and should have the liberty and freedom to express themselves.

          A physicist designed and developed the questionnaire to aid us in developing our awareness of ourselves and of our relationships with other people.  The questionnaire has no right or wrong answers.  No responses are good or bad, ethical or unethical, intelligent or stupid, and moral or immoral.

          The TAP report simply helps you know more about the way others see you and indicates a description of yourself.  It does not mean that you are unalterable in any way.  If, for example, a certain relationship with your parents led you to feel incompetent and you do not like that feeling, you are free to change.

          Assume that you allowed yourself to grow up feeling incompetent, partly because you did not let yourself become aware of what was happening.  Your parents did not do it to you; you allowed it.  Therefore you are the one with the power to change.

          We are free moral agents and any action we take comes through a direct action of our will.  We are responsible for our actions.  We have the 'freedom of choice'.  God, not some higher power, formed us in our mother's womb.   The report indicates the personal characteristics you were born with.  It does not mean that you were born predisposed to a certain behavior.  However, we are influenced by our environment and view the world through our grid of personal life experiences.    There are no temperaments predisposed to being good or bad, ethical or unethical, intelligent or stupid, moral or immoral.  We are a product of our choices.

          Truth is!  Your reality is what is true about you.  You allow yourself to know your reality by becoming aware.  Once you become aware you can deal more effectively with your life.  If you do not let yourself become aware, many things remain ‘unconscious’ or in your ‘unawareness.’  This means you choose many things in life without letting yourself know what you choose. Awareness allows these choices to be deliberate.

           Awareness gives you the tool for running your own life.  If you have little awareness, your honesty is not very helpful or informative since you have very little truth available to communicate.

          Honesty is the key to successful interpersonal relations.  You are honest to the degree that you share your awareness with someone else (or tell them frankly that you will not tell them).

          The report is an awareness scale designed to help you become aware of your relationships with others and provide an instrument to find the reality about your style.  We can choose to be honest about our results and allow people to know them.  In this way you communicate your exposed self to other people  Following that direction brings interpersonal closeness and personal gratification.

          The TAP is a Popular tool that assesses how personal needs can affect your behavior toward other people.  It examines the way you interact with others and the way you wish others would interact with you.  The report offers insight into your compatibility with other people as well as individual characteristics.

          The TAP report illustrates the direction of the behavior -- what the individual expresses to others and what the individual wants from others.  It is important for you to understand that what is expressed is your behavior toward others and what is wanted is the behavior you wish from other people. 

          The report confirms three basic interpersonal needs.  The test defines behaviors as:

Inclusion

          The interpersonal need for inclusion is the need to establish and maintain a satisfactory relationship with people with respect to interaction and association.  It also measures the degree to which an individual wishes to include other people in his or her life and the wanted attention and recognition.

 

Control

          The interpersonal need for control is the need to establish and maintain a satisfactory relationship with respect to control and power.  Control behavior refers to the decision-making process between people.  Control describes the way you react to directions from others and in directing others.

 

Affection

          The interpersonal need for affection is the need to establish and maintain a satisfactory relationship with others with respect to love and affection.  Affection also describes the amount of attention required of others in close personal relationships and the amount he or she prefers to show.

          To illustrate these categories, consider a group of people riding in a boat.  The inclusion issue is the decision to go or not go on the boat ride.  The issue of control deals with who is running the motor or operating the rudder.  The affection issue concerns any close relations that develop between pairs of people.

          There is a multitude of combinations generated by the questionnaire.  The report is a result of your personal preferences.  The results give a complete description of your personal characteristics.  The discovery of your traits may not be startling, but it can be significant to your happiness by understanding your family and friends.  The information can be a valuable tool when making critical decisions and career choices.  Anyone can profit from knowing their personal preferences, strengths and weaknesses.

          Five years later, I now have a Doctorate in Clinical Christian Counseling and have made it a goal to help people understand themselves, their families, and friends.  The reports have helped thousands to discover their strengths, weaknesses, and deep inner needs.  When a person has a profile done, they gain new insights into what makes them tick and what choices will help them flourish.  The revelations will help each person figure out what they need to take better care of their needs.

          Whether you use the profile to examine your life, examine the potential for unexplained needs and desires, confirm talents and strengths, or simply find out more about yourself -- it can be a penetrating tool to help you know yourself.  This report will give you a better picture of the way people see you, all the diverse parts of your personality and how they uniquely come together to make the person you are.  Through this view you are able to use your strengths in a way that was not possible before and give yourself more fully to God and family.

          The flesh fears being over-powered.  When people approach you, the flesh is reactive to the threat of being attacked.  The natural reaction to a threat is to fight or give flight, which are both preservation responses.  When people abandon us, we fear loss and often become jealous or we despair, becoming cast down.  The fear of loss will result in selfish desires, giving way to a fight response.  While despair results from our refusal to face the loss, this often results in a flight response.  When people attempt to get close to us, the fear of rejection may cause a flight response or the fear of exposure will cause a fight response.  The flesh will do anything to resist exposure.  

          The struggle we have with our Christian walk is unsettling until the way the flesh influences our life is revealed.  There is a need for God’s continuous involvement to transform our lives through the process of sanctification.  God desires to bring us to depend on Him for our strength.  The flesh desires to stay in control and use the strength God gave us to satisfy its own lusts.  This is why our flesh needs to be exposed and rendered dead on the Cross with Christ.  Then God can heal us totally.