For instance, personality is the child who dances to imaginary music without trying to impress anyone, or the clerk in the store that asks you how you are and really means it. From what I am reading, personality describes the real me — without any “I wants” attached. It is tied to non-sinful traits that make me different from others. One example is spiritual gifts. Those gifted in teaching love to collect information. Those gifted with compassion are usually hugging everyone.
On the other hand, individuality is tied to the natural person. It is who I am with my fleshy desires and traits. It is all about being my own person, calling for my rights, excusing my sins with, “This is just the way I am.” When considering these words of Jesus, a Christian needs to know the difference between personality and individuality.
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24–25).Because individuality is confused with personality, and because individuality is held on to so dearly, this verse is often confusing and misunderstood. It is also often disobeyed.
Jesus did not ask me to stop being me. He wants my life saved, not destroyed. To do that, He asks me to take up my cross and die to my selfish and demanding nature. Then, when my individuality is gone, my true personality is free to emerge.
A few weeks ago someone taking care of her aging mother remarked that the woman’s feisty, controlling way of life was vanishing and she was becoming more compliant, softer, quieter. While taking care of her became easier, it was “hard to see her personality vanishing.” My response surprised both of us. I said, “Maybe what you are seeing now is her true personality.”
This agrees with what I’m reading today. Individuality is a mere husk surrounding and hindering the personal life. It is “all elbows” and awkward, with a tendency to separate and isolate. It is the “I want it now” characteristic of a spoiled child. The only way that a person’s true personal life may come out and be brought into fellowship with God is by dropping individuality, even putting it to death.
The reading goes so far as to say that individuality counterfeits personality as lust counterfeits love. God designed human nature for Himself; individuality debases human nature for itself because it is independent and self-assertive, hindering our spiritual life more than anything else. The one thing in me that refuses to be reconciled to another, even to God, is my individuality.
God wants to bring me into total union with Himself, but unless I am willing to give up my right to myself, He cannot. When Jesus said, “Let him deny himself” He meant to deny this independent right to myself, allowing the real life, the new life I have in Him, a chance to grow.
Sadly, confusing the two can be a way to avoid growth. If I should say about any of my individual (and self-centered) traits, “Oh, that is just the way I am,” then I am making an excuse for sin and thwarting the work of God in my life.
On the other hand, my personality, which makes me distinct from everyone else, is too much for me to understand. Others see it but I cannot evaluate it. This is for God who made me and is remaking me, just as seeing and getting rid of that sinful husk is also the work of God and the Holy Spirit.
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Lord, I started out this devotional time in frustration over others who assert their individuality and use it to excuse their sin. However, You turned my thoughts around and encourage me to examine myself. Am I doing the same thing? Whenever I make excuses for sin, or think that my sinful nature is just part of who I am, I have forgotten the great and precious promises that come with saving faith. You do love me ‘just as I am’ but You also love me too much to leave me that way. Thank God, thank God.
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