I had the most amazing grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup for dinner tonight. It was just me for dinner, so I wanted something simple. After an awful couple of weeks filled with betrayal, illness, and broken relationships, this was precisely the comfort food I needed. I realized that there are some things that remind me of simpler comfortable time from my growing up and grilled cheese and tomato soup was that solution. Of course, I also realized that there are some things I my past that are no longer serving me — in fact I could suggest I feel haunted by my past self. “Perhaps,” I said aloud as I stood making my dinner, “I need to completely let go of my past self, so I can grow into the person I was meant to be.”

I must die to my old self, so I can give life to the new. “Okay,” you might say, “what does that mean?

The bible teaches that when one disengages oneself from the whole vast belief that that person formerly entertained as themselves and hold on in one’s imagination to the concept that you ARE the person that you want to be. This will RESURRECT and make alive you and you can be led right into the fulfillment of that state. Rebirth. Renewal. Resurrection.

I have found myself so engaged in my thoughts with who I am I terms of who I have always been with my current thoughts and yet I realize that I have not been living according to my truest self — my new self. I realized that for my truest self — my authentic self — to come alive, I needed to die to my old self. For resurrection to a new self to occur, naturally the old self must die. Stay with me here; I’m not talking about death by suicide or anything of the like — I’m talking about coming alive — renewed.

Your world, as it is right now, is the world that you have manifested for yourself based on the total of your beliefs and assumptions — me too. You are what you eat, so your mental diet helps you become what you think. In turn, this has created the person you have become.

I came out of the closet a year ago. I know who I am. I have not been living my authentic life and have been wondering why it seems my life is going to the dogs all around me. My mental diet doesn’t fit with my authentic life any more or perhaps I’m not allowing myself to become who my mental diet it builds me to become. Either way, it’s led me to an understanding to dying to my old life in order that my new authentic self can flourish.

We all have had moments when we felt better here and there, so we were able to manifest our desire at that moment. I’ve certainly been there this past year. But I’m realizing that unless I completely kill the old self, that old self will come back again sooner or later, and frustration will ensue.

Trying to manifest who I am from the old self requires me to leave the old man behind for good first. I am not speaking about some little magical thing where you can wave a wand and your desire will suddenly appear. If I really want to enjoy life, I can have it, but I must be willing to give up who I was to be my authentic self.  

I once read, “You can be anything you want to be, but you cannot be double-minded.” In other words, I need to stop lying to myself. The Bible defines a double-minded man in James 1:7-8: “But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.”

If you were healthy right now, would you have any thoughts that belong to someone who is not healthy? Of course not, so why try to turn self into something new from something old. I need to learn to leave behind all that is now your present concept of old self, and fully embody the NEW me, regardless of what others say or think.

Jesus walked along with the disciples somewhere halfway through his time with them and ask, “Who do people say that I am?” (Mark 8:27)

I’ve been thinking about Jesus’ ‘I AM statement’ for some time. Jesus asked who people said he was, but he really wanted the disciples to think about who THEY thought Jesus was. I want to take this step further in focusing more and more on Who I AM.

Only by reminding myself of who I am constantly and coupling that with who I already know Jesus to be, will I be able to kill the old man for good and become NEW and therefore be as God made me.