Have you ever wanted to change your life? If so, what would you change? To be more specific, what would you change about yourself in order to make your life better? I’m sure that many would think first of physical appearance, or perhaps personal wealth. Of course you would need to address certain goals in order to achieve the desired results. Change your wardrobe, lose some weight, eat healthier, work longer hours to sharpen marketable skills.

But have you ever wanted to be a better person?

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Vain would be the fancy to persuade a man to forget himself.  He cannot if he would.  Sooner will he forget the presence of a raging tooth.  There is no forgetting of ourselves but in the finding of our deeper, our true self — God’s idea of us when he devised us — the Christ in us.  Nothing but that self can displace the false, greedy, whining self, of which, most of us are so fond and proud.  And that self no man can find for himself, seeing of himself he does not even know what to search for.

George MacDonald

The psalmist writes that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.”  We are certainly unique in our appearance, DNA and fingerprints.  We are also unique in how we regard ourselves.  Our life is that precarious balance of who we are and who we want to be.  We learn from our mistakes — or not.  We try to fit in with others by following fashion trends, eating similar foods, enjoying popular entertainment and emulating the characteristics of those we look up to.

All of this is a cat-and-mouse game with self.  Self can be puffed up or brought low.  We preen our self esteem to build our confidence and find acceptance.  Visual and audio materials urge us toward self improvement, bettering ourselves with our own efforts and initiative.  We develop self awareness, focusing on our individuality, to include our strengths and weaknesses.

You begin to see yourself in relation to other selves, seeking to find out what makes you YOU.

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How did we come to be so bad?  Some folks don’t seem to be so bad, some are more consistently bad, and still others appear to be ”rotten to the core.”  As the saying goes, “Nobody’s perfect.”  Why is that?  Is badness contagious?   Does the Devil always make us do it?  Or do all of us have varying quantities of bad genes?

In the religious circles we’re taught that we can’t help being bad, that we’re born that way.  Ironically, they also teach us that our badness destines us for destruction — even though it wasn’t our fault.  We were born that way, right?

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What are you free from?  Are you free from any authority figures around you?  Not likely.  Can you do ANYTHING you want (within your ability, of course)?  Sure.  But expect some of those things to bring responses or consequences.

For the purpose of this discussion the question is, Does God make us do what he wants, or does he give us the authority to really choose — even if it means to reject him — FOREVER?   

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