Hey folks.  Hope you’re smack in the middle of God’s will for you as you read this.

I’ve got something for you right now that is hopefully something that will cause you to take a long, deep, thoughtful look in the mirror.  But before that, let’s go the easier step, and talk about the people all around you.

As I’ve said before in this space, I think that most people are experts about the people around them.  We spend enormous amounts of our time socially as human beings in this day and age trying to psycho-analyze the people around us, identifying their gifts, their faults, their fatal flaw.  I’d wager if most of you were given a cup of your favorite beverage and total immunity from the consequences, you’d be able to come up with this list fairly quickly for nearly all of your friends, co-workers, and family.   What all this adds up to is that if we have any true insight about the people around us, we should know what to expect from the people around us in nearly all circumstances. In Math and Logic, they have a name for this process:  the law of identity.  The law of identity states that a thing is itself.  A=A.

We’ve built collections of data through our personal experiences with others, and we use that data to gauge how they will react to certain situations.  If at any point, people behave in a way that is entirely inconsistent with what we know about them, we must change our definition of what they are.  This process of incorporating new data into a system in which it does not fit is called cognitive dissonance.  In short, we want our world to make sense, so when we get data that doesn’t fit the system, we either change the system or discredit the data.   In relationship terms, this means that either we view people as constantly changing, or static–either they’re changing, or they’re the same old person we’ve always known.  Either way, we have a definition of the people around us.  We know what we expect from people, and we fit their behavior to our expectation, sometimes because we’re right about who they are, and sometimes because we’re blind to our own assumptions about people.  The good news from this process is that at any given moment, we should have enough info to know what to expect from people.  Insecure people act insecurely.  Egotistical people behave egotistically.  Impulsive people behave impulsively.  You get the picture.   That leads to…

Application #1: You shouldn’t expect people you really know to behave differently that what you know about them.  If you know someone lies to others, it’s a good bet that they will lie to you too, given the opportunity or reason to do so.  If you know someone is selfish, and they behave selfishly, it should be the least shocking thing in the world.  I think despite all our efforts to analyze people, we don’t do a good job of putting our knowledge to use.  Let me give you an example from the Christian worldview.  Someone is a new believer.  They know next to nothing about the faith.  We should therefore expect them to be unstable in the faith, making the mistakes spiritually and otherwise that people who aren’t mature in the faith make.  Paul makes exactly this point in 1 Corinthians 3:1-3, in essence telling the Corinthians, in Gump-ian terms, ‘immature is as immature does.’  They’re acting in an immature way–exactly how you’d expect immature people to act.  (In this case, the sign of their immaturity throughout the letter is boasting about how mature they are.)   Likewise, we should expect people who don’t believe in Jesus to behave like they don’t know Him.  Again, Paul speaks on this matter, saying that the things of the faith are foolishness to those who don’t believe them and must be, because people without the Spirit behave like people who don’t have the Spirit, and can’t understand spiritual things.  (1 Cor. 2:1-16)

This is the ultimate in “duh.”  People are themselves.  People reveal what they are through what they continually do.  I know what you’re thinking:  “He spent 650 words saying that?”

But I’ve set you up.  Let’s flip the script and put a mirror in front of you right now as you read this.  If you were to stand in the mirror and look at yourself: what you did today when you thought no one was looking, what you thought throughout the day, the way you treated people, what would they reveal about who you really are? If the law of identity holds, and a thing is itself, what are you? If you claim to be mature in your faith in Jesus Christ, are you living like it?  If you’re new in the faith, are you willing to embrace that newness and follow hard after Christ?

All of us have blindspots–places in ourselves that we can’t see.  We like to believe that we’ve got the corner on the market for knowledge on ourselves, and that no one else could know something about ourselves that we don’t already know.  But we’re deceiving ourselves when we believe that, and our difficulties in living our lives and maturing in our faith will be proportional to the size of our blindspot(s).  It’s the equivalent of walking in a perpetual house of mirrors.  We have difficulty getting information about ourselves, and sometimes it takes another set of eyes we trust to help us get information we desperately need to make good judgments.  There’s a reason that cars have mirrors strategically placed all around them.

Application #2: You desperately need to take seriously the feedback you get from other people about where your blindspots are, even if you think they are wrong. Even if the feedback you get ultimately proves to be wrong, taking it seriously will help you to keep yourself in check.  The people around you have a reason for thinking what they do.  You should be aware of it, and do everything you can to make use of that information.  In the Christian life, we call this accountability.  The people we trust to see us clearly (and we are all supposed to have these people), are called to hold us accountable, and to make sure that we are who we think we are.  Find people in your life who can serve you as a mirror to check your blindspots.

That leads to my final point tonight.  Christians in our time have become famous/infamous for judging people in the culture around us.  Whether that charge is right or wrong is not my concern at the moment.  As it so happens, I’m going to take my own advice and assume that at least from the point of view of someone who would make such a claim, they have a reason for doing so.  Their reason is because they have an idea of what the Christian life is about.  If the person making the judgment is not a Christian, their information may be incorrect, but they are still judging from what they know.  If we hold an unbelieving person accountable for the standard given for believers, we have made a big mistake.  We compound the mistake when we judge non-believers for their behavior (which does not follow the identity principle as discussed above) and do not hold people who do profess faith in Jesus to the standard they have claimed to be in use for themselves (also a violation of the law of identity).  In other words, the charge of hypocrisy towards believers is built on the knowledge that non-believers are being held to a standard that believers do not employ among themselves.   That leads me to…

Application #3: If you’re going to claim to be a Christian, you must be prepared to be held to that standard.  There is no such thing as an insanity plea inside the body of Christ.  If you’re going to claim to believe the Bible, you should be willing to be accountable to it, by others who claim to believe it.  It follows logically from the commitment.  If you’re not prepared to do that, Christianity is not for you, and you should go back and make sure that your ‘conversion’ was real.  There are real reasons for you to be worried about your eternity if you claim to know Christ but have no desire to live according to ALL of his dictates as described in the Scriptures.  (I am bracketing, for the moment, the issue of what exactly the content of all of those dictates are–I know there are disagreements, but that is separate from the issue I am trying to address here.)  What I am NOT saying is that if you struggle to do everything you think you should that you’re not saved. What I AM saying is that if you have no desire to hear what Jesus and the Bible have to say on an issue, there is reason for you to be very concerned.  The Bible has much to say about who we are and is the ultimate set of objective eyes–it was written about humanity before any of us were born, and it will stand as truth long after all of us have given up our physical bodies.  We desperately need the accountability that comes from taking the Scriptures seriously.

Let’s recap.

The law of identity (A=A) states that a thing is itself.  This has big implications all around us.

1.  We should expect the people around us to behave in a way that is consistent with who they are.  If we pay attention, this means that we can save ourselves disappointment, hurt and difficulty by simply expecting people to be what they are.  Likewise, we should expect non-Christians to behave as such, and Christians to behave as though they believe.

2.  You probably have blindspots about your own character that others can see and you cannot.  You need to find trustworthy people to point these blindspots out to you, so that you can seriously work on those areas in your character.  This is critically important for your spiritual growth.  After finding such people, take what they say to you about your character seriously.

3.  Christians claim to believe in God (in three persons) as explained in the Bible.  As such, if the law of identity is going to be true in our lives, we must live up to that standard, inasmuch as any person can.  We need to be willing to be held accountable by the faith we profess without becoming hostile or irritated.

A few practical steps for you tonight.

• Reserve judgment on other people. You should expect people to behave in a way consistent with their character.  If that is true, there isn’t much left to judge–there is only two groups of people:  people who need Jesus, and people who need Jesus more.  Put differently, group one is people who know they need Jesus.  Group two is those who don’t know they need Him.
• Don’t put faith in people who don’t merit it. If someone behaves erratically or demonstrates themselves to be untrustworthy in someway, you should act accordingly and not put too much trust in them.  Trust is earned.
• Find someone(s) in your life who merits your trust and who cares about you, who will say hard things to you about your character and maturity. You desperately need people who can tell you honestly about your blindspots.
• Once you’ve found someone(s) who will perform this necessary service for you, LISTEN TO THEM. They care about you, and don’t deserve to be yelled at for being honest with you.
• Spend time in prayer and in study of the Scriptures, asking God to show you the truth about yourself and where you can stand to grow.
• Pay attention to your daily life–there’s a good chance the next thing you need to work on is hiding in plain sight.  Do you get road rage?  Do you lie to people?  Do you gossip?  Do you lust after someone or something?  Are you greedy?  Are you mean?  Again, ask God to help you to see what is not obvious to you right now.

In case of life, realize that people are themselves, and so are you.  Then ask God to show you not only what you are, but what He wants to make you into.  Ask Him to give you people who will help you to get there.  The kingdom will be bolstered by your maturation in Christ, and you will reap the benefits of being truly mature in Christ.