Finding Our Identity In Things Other Than God

Bereans:

The current topic for our monthly men's study is pride, particularly our desire to define our identity as we choose to define it.  We want to make ourselves in our own image.  This week we memorized Ezekiel 28:2, which was part of God's rebuke to the king of Tyre, who thought he was a god.  In this passage, God rebukes him by saying that "you make your heart like the heart of God."  This means that he viewed his own thoughts and feelings about himself (his heart) as being on the level of God's heart. He thought his heart was the final say, and the highest authority in his life.  As our culture would say, he "followed his heart." The Bible says that "as a man thinks in his heart, so is he" (Proverbs 23:7; see also Proverbs 27:19).

This nearly ubiquitous advice of following your heart is a form of idolatry that actually is rooted in elevating yourself to God's level. You think that what you desire is ultimately what matters most.  You think that you know what's best and that you know the best way to go about getting it.  This is where identity comes in.  We start finding our value in our goals, desires, dreams, and ambitions.  We try to define ourselves by what we become, or by what we do, or by what we want.  God says our identity must be found in glorifying the One in whose image we are made (1 Corinthians 10:31).

A sad example of this was seen in the recent death of the actor Matthew Perry.  If you followed this story, the millennial generation was really hard hit by his tragic death, despite a long, slow, predictable demise. I watched an interview with him from a few years ago in which he candidly revealed what was going on in his heart.  He said that growing up in a home with celebrity parents was hard because people were always looking at his mother and father. As a small child standing next to his parents with cameras clicking, he said that he desperately wanted people to pay attention to him, not them.  He stated that he learned to be funny and make people laugh because it made him the center of attention.  He then admitted that anytime he did not get laughs or attention on an almost daily basis, he would turn to alcohol and drugs. His idol was attention and the praise of men.  Sadly, his idol carried him to his death. The following Fight for Truth podcast covers some of the Matthew Perry story from a biblical perspective.
https://youtu.be/0o_gd3PXvl0?si=NeWbSoOrf95JFrvn

This article addresses the rampant use of drugs by teens.  I believe that drugs are their means of escape from the reality that they do not actually get to remake themselves and the world in their own image. Teens are being fed the lie that they can be what they want to be and do what they want to do.  In other words, they can be their own gods.  Yet, reality hits them in the face when everyone else around them wants to be their own god, too.  All these competing agendas end up clashing and no one is satisfied.  Their dreams come crashing down, so they try to escape their reality by turning to drugs.  It's an extremely sad existence.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12017947/Teen-mental-health-crisis-laid-bare-students-use-cannabis.html

When a person's faith is in God, then he is free to live as God intended man to live.  A believer will find his identity in the God who made him.  This is true freedom, and it takes away all incentives to escape reality through drugs and other attempts to deny reality or define ourselves in our own image.

Grace and peace to you,

J.W.