Do you know the song that young children sometimes sing? It says, “I am very special. There’s no one else like me. God has made me special. There’s no one else like me.” Isn’t it amazing that God has made each of us totally unique? Identical twins have many similarities and can be very difficult to tell apart, but even then there are specific qualities, both physically and in their personalities, that set them apart from each other. While our tendency at various times in our lives is to look at others and begin to wish that we had been given some of their beauty, talents, or intelligence, accepting the reality that God made us to be the “one-of-a-kind” person that we are is really a part of maturity as well as contentment. Of course, how we live out our individual set of strengths and weaknesses, capabilities and limitations, is a lifelong process.
One of the most important concepts that Scripture helps us to understand, however, is that all of us are born with a sinful nature. There is not one person who is perfect, is there? We all stand in need of being forgiven by a righteous and holy God because innately we turn our back on Him and willingly choose to ignore Him and go our own way. As Paul said in Romans, “Everyone has sinned. We all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet, God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when He freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin.” There’s only one way to receive a “new self” or a “new nature” and that is by “believing that Jesus sacrificed His life, shedding His blood, for our sake.” Does this mean that our sinful nature no longer is a problem to us? No – but by God’s Spirit, we are no longer in bondage to it alone. We can become the unique person that God desires us to be!
Perhaps next time you are tempted to look around and find qualities in others that you wish you had been given, you could simply choose to stop and give thanks to God for the ways He has blessed others. As you do this, you will find that God’s Spirit will give you insight into who He wants you to become by His power.
