In my quiet time this morning, I was thinking about my family and friends who are atheist, agnostic, or otherwise are unbelievers. Why would they reject the love and recue of God available to them through Jesus? Then this thought – maybe they are clinging to the well-known saying “To thine own self be true.” This saying is not from the Bible but from the Shakespearian play Hamlet.

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Maybe they are thinking “I have doubts” or “You can’t prove there is a God” or “I see too many Christian hypocrites”, and it is not reasonable for me to believe with these doubts and questions. I will not give in to their appeal and leave my rational mind behind. I will be true to myself!”

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Here’s the problem with that thinking. The natural man is infected with a sin nature. Evil is present within him. He is ruled by sinful desires or saying it the biblical way, he is a slave to sin. Thine own self wants you to stay that way – a slave to sin. Sin does not want to let you go and, though this Shakespearian quote sounds good, it is used by evil to keep you trapped as a sinful, lost person. It doesn’t want to let you go and is appealing to your ego to keep you.

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The Christian message is that by admitting your sin, repenting of it, and believing in what God did through Jesus to save you, the old self is done away with, and you have a new self – born again as Jesus said – indwelled by the Spirit of God and rescued, freed from the slavery to sin. It is to THIS SELF one can safely be true – a self bent on loving God and neighbor, a self living life out of gratitude toward God for loving him enough to suffer and die in his place for his sins.

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I adjure you my unbelieving friend, don’t cling to a self enslaved to sin for the sake of ego. Admit your need of rescue and turn to God’s awesomely wonderful provision of love through Jesus. Repent, believe, and be saved!