Hearing Yourself and the Need for Holiness

Have you ever listened to yourself on a voice recorder?  I will never forget the first time I heard myself preach from a cassette tape.  My heart sank as I heard the sermon. I cringed as I listened to the dialect, tone, and inflection of my voice.  “Something had to be wrong with the tape, or the recorder,” I thought, “there’s no way I sound like that.”

But I did…that was really me.  The raw reality of myself came into light that day like never before.  It was as though I was introduced to myself for the first time.

Such is the process of holiness.

When I see (or hear) myself for what I really am, only then can I make efforts to change.  Holiness begins when we come to terms with the real us.  It proceeds to develop when we see ourselves in light of the glory of God.  Jerry Bridges puts it this way, “The natural result of seeing God’s standard and our sinfulness is the awakening within us of a desire to be holy.”

When I heard myself for the first time, I wanted to improve.  I wanted to improve my content, my substance, my communication skills, and my intonation.

Don’t get me wrong, I did not want to be fake, I wanted to be authentically different…I wanted to be better.

Holiness requires seeing ourselves for what we really are, and trusting in the grace of God to fashion us into the image and character of Jesus Christ.  May God grant us His ears so that we can hear the real us.  May God give us His heart so that we can speak like the real Him.