How well do you know yourself? It’s an important question. Modern psychology and neuroscience have revealed that our brains are neuroplastic, meaning they are constantly being shaped and reshaped by our experiences, behaviors, thoughts, and relationships.

Further, there are both conscious and subconscious experiences that influence the way we think, react, and even the way we love or fear. Some of these influences are from our genetics (nature), while others come from the environment we were raised in, our family, our culture, our traumas, our successes (nurture).

The psychologist Daniel J. Siegel, considered a pioneer in interpersonal neurobiology, writes that “where attention goes, neural firing flows, and neural connection grows.” In other words, what you focus on literally changes your brain.

Some take a personality test in an effort to know themselves, which can help, but that itself is insufficient, it fails to identify the why. Authentic self-knowledge requires prayer. St. Augustine put it this way, “Grant, Lord, that I may know myself, that I may know you.” If I don’t know who I am, then I won’t know God, I won’t know what it means to be a Christian.

This is at the heart of today’s reading from Colossians, it is a definition of Christian identity:

“If you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

If you do not know your Christian identity, who you are, then you will interpret this verse to mean that our goal in the Christian life is to get off of the earth and into heaven. “Seek what is above… Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.” But, you do know your Christian identity. You remember from the feast of the ascension that this image of Christ ascending into heaven and seated at the right hand of God is an image of power. It is expressed in the way people thought about the gods, divine power dwelled in high places. But we also saw in Pentecost that this divine power is not in heaven, it is now present on earth, given to every Christian believer.

That is what the letter of the Colossians means when it says “you were raised with Christ,” meaning, you share the power of the resurrection here and now. To identify as a Christian is to know the power you have received, and what you are capable of doing with that power. That means the Christian life is NOT about waiting to go to heaven, is about having received the power from heaven so that you can do something with it here on earth.

This is what Jesus is saying in the Gospel over a dispute between two brothers and inheritance. It is a competition for earthly power in the form of wealth. As a response, Jesus criticizes people who seek money as their main source of power: “take care to guard against all greed… one’s life does not consist of possessions” this is not what matters to God. When we seek earthly power, our identity becomes “to be the winner” the one who comes in on top. In order for that to happen, one person will lose, and another will win.

God is not interested in who is more capable, who has a higher IQ, whose business is more successful, which nation is the most powerful… what matters to God is that every human person realizes they are created in God’s image.  

Colossians says: “Your life is hidden with Christ in God.” This means that you have a source of power working for you that is different from other visible sources. It’s different from money. It’s different from fame. It’s different from military power. It’s different from political power. It is a hidden source of power.

And what matters to God in the exercise of this power is not that we escape from the world, but that we use this power to transform the world so that it fulfills God’s purposes.

This begins with the transformation of your individual life. Colossians says to put to death your false identities, “Stop lying to one another, since you have taken off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.”

That was revolutionary, Paul is tapping into what modern psychology is just now beginning to understand as a neurological level. Authentic transformation begins when you come to true self-knowledge, when you realize who you really are and accept who you really are, and for us, that leads us to discover that we are man and woman created in the image of God. This is the beginning of a new self.

Colossians recognizes that we all have a personality, a self, and this personality is affected by all the experiences with power that we’ve had during our life. For example, parents have absolute power over their children. If they abuse this power, or if they make mistakes, or if it is absent, it will leave their children with insecurities. There are so many ways that other people have power over us. For this reason, the letter says: “Put to death the parts of yourself that are earthly.” Learn to recognize what has shaped your personality in this world, and how it has caused you to desire what you desire. And put to death all the ways of living that come from this old self.

A new life in Christ means you’re going to be able to start over again, a new history, free from all the baggage that you’ve been carrying around from the way your life has affected you and the way your relationships with other people have affected you. Once you realize that you are a person created in the image of God, loved by God in Christ, you have the power to do this, to literally transform yourself.

This is a power that has been hidden in you since the day of your baptism, whether you have recognized it or not. What happen to that power in their life? What have you done with it?

There are some people who have been so hurt by people who had power over them that they have become violent. They’ve become totally immoral. But these people, through the power of the love of Christ, can leave this old self behind and can be transformed. There are many testimonies of people who have completely changed their life when they realized the power of God given to them, stories of incredible conversion, of overcoming the worst of tragedies.

There are some people who have become so insecure because of the experiences in their life that they have come under the power of uncontrolled desires which lead to addictions. But the gospel assures us that anyone, through the power of the love of Christ, can leave this old self behind. They can be transformed. Some people have formed no personal identity apart from their work. They live only for money. They measure their success only in the material. But these people, through the power of the love of Christ, can leave this old self behind. They can be transformed. Because these people matter to God. You and I matter to God.

What matters to God is that every person created in the image of God becomes what he or she was created to be: to live for love. And when this transformation takes place in our individual lives, then the world, society, will be transformed as well.

Paul describes the Church as a community of people who are in the process of transformation: “Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision or uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free. But Christ is all, and in all.” Meaning, in the transformed reality of the new self, there are no power struggles between people.

He also says “Stop lying to each other.” What does that mean? That if I am convinced that everyone is a child of God, then if someone is being, say a jerk, that is not their true identity. So, to call someone a jerk, is a lie. Among people created in God’s image, there are no jerks and no idiots, only individuals loved by God, and our role as Christians is to help others become realized in this identity.

In the people of God, there are no more Greeks competing with Jews over who has the superior culture. There are no more uncircumcised Christians competing with circumcised Christians over who is more spiritual or who is more orthodox. There are no more people born to be slaves subject to the power of people born to be free. There are no more lower-class people subject to upper-class people. There are no more American workers competing with Hispanic immigrants, legal or illegal. There are no more African Americans competing with white Americans. In the people of God, Christ is all and is in all.

This is who Christ has revealed we are. This is true Christianity. It’s not an escape from earth to heaven. The world matters to God. Every person matters to God. To know ourselves as Christians is to know that we have received power from above, the power of Christ. It is not a power of domination and competition, but the power of transformative and love, one that, if you are a baptized Christian, you have received. Your identity is not something you create, it is a gift, and if the circumstances of your life has made it difficult to realize your new self, pray for your eyes and heart to be opened, seek what is above, to realize what you are capable of doing here below. Then, begin to live by it more fully, and you will be renewed. And you will become capable of transforming the lives of others.