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.