CE 1 YEAR: 18 Your Personality

Week 18

Your Personality

Appreciating your God-given personality

Your Dad in Heaven is the most creative and powerful Person in the Universe and He created you. Psalm 139:13-14 describes how He made you to be special and unique. He created you in your mother’s womb. He created the deepest parts of your being to be an amazing and wonderful masterpiece that uniquely displays a part of what He is like!

The Hebrew word for “inward parts” in Psalm 139:13 is kilyâ which literally means “kidneys.” When used figuratively, the term refers to the innermost aspects of personality. The text is not referring to the internal organs of your body, but the psychological makeup of your soul. You did not inherit your personality. Nor did you learn your personality. God uniquely and personally created your personality.

Perhaps you got your nose, eyes, hair, and height from your dad. But you got your personality from your real Dad. Genes determined your physical body, but God determined your personality. Your personality is the unique expression of your soul, the eternal spiritual part of you. While all humans are made in the image of God, the unique personality of your soul will uniquely reflect an aspect of your Dad’s personality forever.

God not only loves you, but He likes you, and likes how He made your personality. But many Christians struggle with appreciating their personality and comparing themselves to others. But are they seeing reality? Does your Dad and Creator believe He made a mistake? Your Dad made your personality amazing and wonderful! David praised God for how He had created his personality. Can you do the same?

Recognizing & understanding your God-given personality

Since ancient times it has been observed that there are four basic personality types:

Leader: Strong, driven, daring, decisive. Wants to complete the mission.

Relater: Friendly, inspiring, optimistic, fun. Wants to enjoy people.

Helper: Reliable, peaceful, productive, humorous. Wants to serve people.

Thinker: Precise, creative, committed, quiet. Wants to understand things.

A helpful comparison table of these Four Basic Personality Types is provided at the end of this chapter. It is helpful to understand a few basic things about human personality.

First, it is important to understand your personality and the personality of those around you. Especially when the great majority of married couples have exactly opposite personalities! This is because people sense their need for those who are strong in their weaknesses. It is truly remarkable how many outgoing, people-oriented personalities marry more private, task-oriented people, and vice-versa. This natural attraction to our opposite usually results in two people becoming one “whole” human having all Four Basic Personality Types in some measure.

Secondly, it is neither possible nor desirable to perfectly categorize people. It is helpful to think of the Four Basic Personality Types as the available ingredients that make up a person’s personality. You are a unique blend of these Types. But most will have one dominant type.

Thirdly, no personality is better than another. Unfortunately, the World places a higher value on some traits than others. Outgoing leader types are often viewed as the model of what humans should be. The more quiet and contemplative types tend to be overlooked. But all the God-given personalities of humans display a unique but equally valuable part of who He is. Your personality may not be noticed and promoted in a World that is attracted to charisma. But the value of your personality is not found in how well it reflects what the World likes, but how well it reflects to the World what God is like. God is asking you to be faithful with who He made you. He is not asking you to be someone else.

When the Holy Spirit controls your personality it will glorify God and bless people. But when your personality is controlled by your sinful nature, it will reflect the worst parts of humanity and hurt people. It is God’s Spirit that makes your personality beautiful. It is sin that actually makes you ugly.

It is wrong, hurtful, and even arrogant to expect people to be like you. If you are effective with people, it is because God made you that way. It is wrong for you to expect others to be the same. Likewise, if you are good with details and thinking deeply about things, do not look down on people who were not made that way. Accept that God has made all personalities “amazing and wonderful.”

Finally, what is the essential difference between The Four Basic Personality Types? WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY. Therefore, the strengths of each personality are uniquely designed to make that particular person happy. Accomplishing tasks makes a Leader personality happy, so they are good at this. Making new friends makes a Relater personality happy, so they are good at this. Being useful to people in helpful ways makes a Helper personality happy. Being accurate makes a Thinker personality happy. Therefore, what uniquely makes a person happy is what shapes their personality.

Accepting your God-given personality weaknesses

All personality traits have two kinds of weaknesses: natural and sinful. You can change the sinful tendencies of your personality traits, but you cannot change your natural weaknesses.

One of the most foolish things you can attempt is to strengthen the natural weaknesses of your personality. For example, if someone with a more public personality (Leader, Relater) tries to be strong in details like those with a more private personality (Thinker), they will make a lot of mistakes, and frustrate themselves and others. Likewise, if someone with a more private personality (Helper, Thinker) tries to spend a lot of time influencing, befriending, and speaking to a lot of people, they will get exhausted. And they probably will not enjoy it very much.

Do not waste your time trying to change your personality. You cannot create your personality, but only discover the one God gave you. Strive to be the best version of who God made you. Do not try to be someone God never intended for you to be.

When you fight against who God made you, and try to be someone you are not, you will not be effective, authentic, happy, or a blessing to others. Instead of wasting energy trying to change your personality, God wants you to form relationships with others who can help your weaknesses.

Sometimes efforts to strengthen our natural personality weaknesses are motivated by a desire to be independent and not need others. God never intended one person to have all the personality strengths. He wants you to live and work with others and be blessed by their personality strengths. Your God-given weaknesses will be the strengths of other people with different personalities.  So, acknowledge your natural weaknesses and view them as an opportunity to connect with others to represent God to the World more completely.

While you cannot change your natural weaknesses, you can change your character and the sinful weaknesses of your personality. These exist in the bad programming of your mind and you can be transformed by renewing your mind (Rom 12:2). When you do, it brings out the very best of your personality.

But even a Spirit-controlled Leader is not going to be very emotional. A Spirit-controlled Relater is not going to be good with details. Even a Spirit-controlled Helper is not going to be decisive. And a Spirit-controlled Thinker will not be energized by people. All of these are God-given weaknesses of your personality and must be accepted.

Another good reason to focus on the strengths of your personality is they will energize you. Focusing on your weaknesses will exhaust you. So, it is vitally important to pursue occupations and ministries that use your personality strengths instead of your weaknesses. It is also important to have people in your life who have personalities the opposite of yours.

It is possible that your best and easiest friendships will be with those who share your personality. These are often the people you will really “click with,” understand the best, and who will encourage you the most. So have one or two of these people involved in your life as well.

God made humans complex. We are trying to keep it simple. But even getting a basic understanding of your personality type is important to understand how your Dad uniquely made you.

Practical Application: Study the table on the following page and determine your basic personality. Share this with your small group this week.

In your small group meeting this week, share praises and prayer requests and then discuss these questions:

1) What are the four basic types of human personality?

2) What makes you uniquely happy? Why is this a guide to knowing your personality?

3) Why is it foolish to try changing your personality?

4) What was especially meaningful to you in this chapter? Why?

The Four Basic Personality Types

Attributes	Leader	Relater	Helper	Thinker
% of People	18%	28%	40%	14%
Goal in Life	Completing the mission	Enjoying people	Serving people	Understand truth
Strengths	Strong Driven Daring Decisive	Friendly Optimistic Inspiring Fun	Reliable Peaceful Productive Humorous	Precise Creative Committed Quiet
Likes & Energized By	Action Achieving Challenge People	Appreciation Talking Fun People	Helping Listening Predictability Privacy	Accuracy Asking why Details Privacy
Dislikes & Exhausted By	Failure Rules Wasting time	Rejection Details Pessimism	Change Conflict Being rushed	Errors Chaos Public Speaking
Relationships	Initiator	Initiator	Responder	Responder
Natural Weaknesses	Not relational Unemotional Overlooks details	Forgetful Disorganized Emotional	Slow Indecisive Indifferent	Private Serious Workaholic
Sinful Weaknesses	Harsh Impatient Independent	Undisciplined Needs approval High ego	Lazy Stubborn Antagonistic	Selfish Negative Moody
Good Careers	Entrepreneur CEO	Sales Public speaker	Teacher Support roles	Accountant Doctor
Spiritual Gifts	Pastor	Giver Encourager Comforter Evangelist	Servant	Teacher
Illustrated in God	John 3:16-17 John 4:34 Mark 3:13-14	Zeph 3:17 Luke 8:4 1 Tim 6:17	John 4:34 John 6:38 John 19:30	Gen 1:1-2 Gen 1:26 Col 1:15-17
Bible Characters	Nehemiah Paul	David Peter	Jonathan Barnabas	Ezra Luke
Bible verses	Acts 20:24 1 Cor 4:3-4 1 Cor 15:10	John 10:10 Eph 4:32 1 Th 5:16-18 1 Peter 4:9	1 Cor 4:2 Col 4:17 James 1:19 Matt 5:9	Ezra 7:10 Luke 1:3-4 Eph 4:29 1 Tim 4:16