You Are Not Your Personality, You are Who God Says You Are

What? What do you mean I’m not my personality?? Huh?

   

You’ve been told or you have said it yourself: 

“That’s your personality. You are who you are.” 

But what if you aren’t? 

 

We’ve been told we have to change our thinking, to “think positively rather than negatively.” Blah, blah, blah. Never were we told how to actually achieve it - no matter the recordings, YouTube videos, documentaries and books on “Self Help”, and seminars…it doesn’t help. 

 

In fact it makes things more frustrating. It’s a battle within ourselves as we are getting more frustrated without any true help. There is still a part to our personality that is just “the way it is.” It doesn’t seem like we can change it. “That’s just who I am.” And because we keep thinking the same things and doing the same things because “we can’t change who we are,” we get the same results. 

 

But what if this can change?

 

When you find out that a part of the crucifixion of Jesus was to deliver you from your mind, from your personality, it changes everything. Here is the freedom from something we never knew we could be free of. That’s shoutin’ ground right there!! 

 

Jesus delivered you from your personality! Jesus sacrificed all areas of Himself for us. (*See Crucifixion article.) We know He died for our sins and most know He died for our sicknesses. But we aren’t taught the fullness of everything He died for including our mental state and our personality. That’s what the Garden of Gethsemane was about. Jesus sacrificed His personality, His thinking mind, His emotions, and His will for the Father’s…and He did so to the point of sweating Blood! 

 

If there was anything left out, then His death wasn’t complete for us - wasn’t enough. He needed to sacrifice every part of Himself for every part of us. Oh, and His death is more than enough! Let’s get in to our “personality” since that is what this article is about.

 

Our personality is part of our soul. And our soul is a part of our spirit. It is not our spirit, but a part of it. That’s why God spoke Hebrews 4:12 - For the Word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

 

If the Word can divide the soul and spirit that means they are together. But they are two different Greek words and are used differently in scripture. Most often when scripture uses the word “heart”, it means “soul”. Jesus paid the price for the human soul. Yes, there is our Godly personality the way God made us and there is also the characteristics of our personality that are developed by the curse of this world, sin. This is what we are free from! We call these “traits”. For example, if someone is habitual in lying, it may be in little things. Their personality developed around this trait. It is not who they are. Same goes with a husband that habitually cheats on his wife. He may think that is just who He is. May in fact think that monogamy is an outdated idea. And his entire personality is built around this behavior. Or someone who constantly second-guesses themself - they never trust themselves to make the right choice and have developed an entire personality around that trait. For another, they are constantly looking for approval, getting accolades, and yet when they get them it never sinks in and they need more. None of these “traits” are who these people really are. These are traits of “fallen man”. And Jesus has paid the price for all of this!! Let’s take a look at a few things more closely and then I’ll get into how to change it. Like everything else with the Lord there is a pattern of how He does things. It is the same here! But because our “personalities” are so close to us, we never thought they could change so we didn’t think to consider that they could. 

 

Strong’s Greek for “soul”, #5590  psuché;  and #5591 psuchikos:

1.    #5590 Psuché - “(a) the vital breath, breath of life, (b) the human soul, (c) the soul as the seat of affections and will, (d) the self, (e) a human person, an individual. psyxḗ (from psyxō, "to breathe, blow" which is the root of the English words "psyche," "psychology") – soul (psyche); a person's distinct identity (unique personhood), i.e. individual personality.”

 

“5590 (psyxē) corresponds exactly to the OT 5315 /phágō ("soul"). The soul is the direct aftermath of God breathing (blowing) His gift of life into a person, making them an ensouled being. Heart (2), heartily (1), life (36), lives (7), mind (1), minds (1), person (1), persons (3), soul (33), souls (14), suspense* (1), thing (1).”

*

Here are some scriptures on how the Lord sees the soul:

 

Matthew 11:29 - Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, AND  you will find rest for your souls.

When we are staying tight with the Lord, learning of Him and how to live our lives His way and doing it, we find rest for our souls. We are “submitting” our personalities, our thinking, to His way of thinking and doing. We exchange our way of operating for His. This changes our “personality”.  “Lowly in heart” means: describes the person who depends on the Lord rather than self.  When we do this our personality changes. The old carnal nature falls away.

 

Matthew 12:18 - Berean Literal Bible - Behold My servant, whom I have chosen, My beloved, in whom My soul has found delight. I will put My Spirit upon Him, and He will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. 

This scripture in Matthew was first said in Isaiah 42:1. We see this is God the Father speaking of His Son Jesus. And we see that God the Father has a soul! The Father’s soul delights in what Jesus did! (Interesting this scripture may have been one that “spoke” to the Apostle Paul - Jesus and Gentiles!). Also notice that as Jesus was doing what the Lord wanted, it allowed for His Spirit to be upon Him, and we know He had the Spirit without measure! We too, as we obey the Lord, His yoke is easy, it allows the Holy Spirit to move more within us!

 

 

1 Thessalonians 5:23 - May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is one of my favorite scriptures! We see God is the God of peace. That is Who He is! And He is the One Who separates us - “sanctifies” - entirely. Our whole spirit. Our whole soul. Our whole body. And He keeps us - blameless - because of the Blood of Jesus! It is nothing we can do on our own. It’s all Him. 

 

There is a little more to this Greek word Psueche:

 

• “the soul, a. the seat of the feelings, desires, affections, aversions (our soul, heart, etc. the (human) soul in so far as it is so constituted that by the right use of the aids offered it by God it can attain its highest end and secure eternal blessedness, the soul regarded as a moral being designed for everlasting life.”

 

3 John 1:2 - Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.

We prosper in all things, including in our health - as our soul is prospering in the things of God. If we aren’t active, doing what the Lord leads us to do, we will be struggling with our souls, our personalities, and it will show up in every area of our lives - health, relationships, business. 

 

“From psucho; breath, i.e. (by implication) spirit, abstractly or concretely (the animal sentient principle only; thus distinguished on the one hand from pneuma, which is the rational and immortal soul; and on the other from zoe, which is mere vitality, even of plants: these terms thus exactly correspond respectively to the Hebrew nephesh, ruwach and chay) -- heart (+ -ily), life, mind, soul, + us, + you.”

 

Psueche and Zóé are the two words used for “soul” and “spirit” showing there is a differnce between the two.  Zóé is defined as the “Life of God”. “Life (physical and spiritual). All life (2222 /zōḗ), throughout the universe, is derived – i.e. it always (only) comes from and is sustained by God's self-existent life. The Lord intimately shares His gift of life with people, creating each in His image which gives all the capacity to know His eternal life.”

 

This clearly defines what Hebrews 4:12 is about - For the Word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

 

Soul: Psueche/Pneuma  and  Spirit: Zóé.

 

2.      #5591 Psuchikos:  “natural, of the soul or mind

Usage: animal, natural, sensuous.

psyxikós (an adjective, derived from 5590 /psyxḗ, "soul, natural identity") – properly, soulish, i.e. what is natural, as it relates to physical (tangible) life alone (i.e. apart from God's inworking of faith).

5591 /psyxikós ("natural") typically describes the natural ("lower") aspect of humanity, i.e. behavior that is "more of earth (carnality) than heaven. 5591 (psyxikós) then sometimes stands in contrast to 4152 /pneumatikós ("spiritual") – the higher, spiritual aspect of humanity that develops through faith (4102 /pístis).”

 

1 Corinthians 15:44-46, 50 - it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual…I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

 

#5591 “is natural, of the soul or mind, natural (5), worldly-minded (1).James 3:15; Jude 19

 

a. having the nature and characteristics of the ψυχή i. e. of the principle of animal life, which men have in common with the brutes (see ψυχή, 1 a.); (A. V. natural): σῶμα ψυχικόν, 1 Corinthians 15:44; substantively, τό ψυχικόν (Winer's Grammar, 592 (551)), 1 Corinthians 15:46: since both these expressions do not differ in substance or conception from σάρξ καί αἷμα in 1 Corinthians 15:50, Paul might have also written σαρκικον; but prompted by the phrase ψυχή ζῶσα in 1 Corinthians 15:45 (borrowed from Genesis 2:7), he wrote ψυχικόν.

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b. "governed by the ψυχή i. e. the sensuous nature with its subjection to appetite and passion (as though made up of nothing but ψυχή): ἄνθρωπος (equivalent to σαρκικός (or σάρκινος, which see 3) in ), 1 Corinthians 2:14; ψυχικοί, πνεῦμα μή ἔχοντες, Jude 1:19 (A. V. sensual (R. V. with marginal reading 'Or natural, Or animal'); so in the following example); σοφία, a wisdom in harmony with the corrupt desires and affections, and springing from them (see σοφία, a., p. 581b bottom), James 3:15. (In various other senses in secular authors from Aristotle and Polybius down.) 

natural, sensual.

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From psuche; sensitive, i.e. Animate (in distinction on the one hand from pneumatikos, which is the higher or renovated nature; and on the other from phusikos, which is the lower or bestial nature) -- natural, sensual.

see GREEK psuche"

 

We can see soul can often mean the mind, or the beast like nature, or nature of fallen man which is what corrupts our God-given personality. And we are to retrain our minds: Romans 12:2 - Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will. There are two parts to the soul - the God made part; the sin fallen part that creates the bad “traits”. The Lord gave us power over them!

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If we want breakthroughs we then need to put this into action. It’s the same no matter what you’re doing: retraining your mind; believing for a spouse; believing for your healing; etc. Always ask the Lord for help and direction:

1. Go search all the scripture regarding the area you are dealing with.

2. Write down those scriptures. 

3. Rewrite those scriptures with “you” in them, as “confessions” (*See        article on Confessions).

4. Speak them over yourself every day until your thinking changes.

5. Keep giving God the praise for who you are as you speak the scriptures over yourself and for the victory He has given you in all things 1 John 4:4; 5:4; and Romans 8:31. In the beginning it will be more than once per day because you have to change your thoughts 2 Corinthians 10:3-6. Each time an old “personality” thought comes to your mind, talk out loud to yourself, and say: “No, I refuse that thought in the Name of Jesus and I cast it out.” And then replace that thought with the scripture that opposes it. 

I will finalize this with a few more scriptures that help for more insight to how the Lord sees our souls:

 

Hebrews 13:17 - Obey those who rule over you (pastors etc), and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you.

 

1 Peter 2:11 - Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.

 

1 Peter 2:25 - For “you were like sheep going astray,” but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

 

James 1:21 - Amplified Bible - So get rid of all uncleanness and all that remains of wickedness, and with a humble spirit receive the Word [of God] which is implanted [actually rooted in your heart], which is able to save your souls.

 

James 5:20 - Berean Literal Bible - let him know that the one having brought back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death, and will cover over a multitude of sins.

 

1 Peter 1:9 - for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 

 

1 Peter 1:22 - Since you have purified your souls in obeying the Truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart (soul)

 

1 Peter 4:19 - Berean Standard Bible - So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should entrust their souls to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.