Who And What Are You?

Are 'you' what is perceived from outside?
Or are 'you' who is alive on the inside?

I write quite a bit about identity because how one identifies themselves among others is very important.

It is important because one's ideas about themselves (and about others) often depicts how they treat others.

Science is now explaining how all of mankind is related; we are all brothers and sisters and distant cousins.

We are in simple terms from, and of, one big family.

We are one tribe: human.

I mention 'cousin' because although some cousins are closer than brothers / sisters, some cousins are not as close... and such is also a state of mind (and heart condition).

Religions have historically been methods bringing different people into a single and unifying ideology, while at the same time they have also been used as dividing factors.

Since religion(s) attempt to explain, define, and formulate a concept of God and mankind's relation to and with God, and since we are all related as one family, are we not also attempting to define a single religion (way of understanding God)?

Consider the upbringing you had... and the shortsightedness you (and I and all others) have in being unable to fully comprehend the upbringing of another human being, even a brother or sister who lived beneath the same roof as you growing up.

If two children who were raised to love each other can have a difference of opinion or a varied view of the world inside and outside the home, how much more the variables from distant brothers and sisters who were raised in slightly different households?

I use 'slightly different' because mankind, at their core foundation, has more in common that they have in difference.

The more we explore ourselves, the motivations of others, and the world at-large, the clearer our oneness comes into view.

The easier accusations are refuted.

The quicker fallacies are defeated.

The clearer our collective mind can be reflected.

And what about our hearts?

When exploring what we have at our core, allowing light to expand the places where darkness may currently reside, we may be able to extinguish ideas previously believed to be 'true' and better recognize them as the falsehoods they are.

Is one human being, at their core of what they really are, any different from another?

Only in their minds.

Only 'different' by what they've been told.

If since childhood we were taught we are one, we are all brothers and sisters only 'separated' by time and geography, and that we are in the process of being reintroduced to one another in a way beyond physical... how would our heart's attitudes be towards one another?

Would we not be overjoyed at our homecoming?

We would not be filled with emotions of love and our eyes filled by tears at seeing our long lost brothers and sisters, now embracing each other without fear or suspicion?

Would we be afraid to acknowledge He who lives in us is greater than the things which are outside of us... that is, if we truly have Him in our hearts?

Notice how the effort of nationality / empire / statehood / collective identities is ironically a unifying effort allowing for the blending of past cultures to reveal the journey our collective heritage has taken... regardless of the brand of religion or bland attempts to stamp out our unifying spirits.

It is when pride temps an individual to consider their heritage as superior instead of the responsible role it has been... that we could better understand what God has done.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him. Yet to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His Name, He gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. 

- John 1: 9-13

Whatever the secular identity is politically labeled, consider always first and foremost our spiritual identity... and label yourself and others properly and honestly.

So in Christ Yeshua you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Yeshua. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. 

- Galatians 3: 26-29