The world around us seeks to shape our identity into one that is unrecognizable from the one Christ gives us. It’s tempting to exchange the biblical truth of who God says we are for the tangible markers of life’s successes or failures and the lies that come with them. We believe we have worth when our kids are happy, or when our sales are up. We come to believe we are unlovable because of closet skeletons in the family we come from, or the sins we’ve committed.
I have met with dozens of women who have believed the lies of the enemy that started with the simple question whispered to Eve in Genesis 3: “Did God really say . . . ?” We read scriptures that make claims about our true identity as children of God: I am a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). I am a saint (Romans 1:7). I am complete in Christ (Philippians 1:6). I am a light to a dark world (Matthew 5:14). But we can’t grasp that it really applies to us—to me.
We might even have such promises tattooed on our body and emblazed across our living room walls. Yet how many of us are living our lives from a place of emptiness or that deep despair of believing we aren’t worthy of such truths?
“How many of us are living our lives from a place of emptiness or that deep despair of believing we aren’t worthy of such truths?”
We read and believe improbable stories in Scripture. But then we read a verse like Ephesians 2:19, “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household,” and we remain unmoved to change our thought patterns of who we believe we are. While we can speak the words, can we accept the truth deep in our souls that we are children of God, accepted and loved in His eyes?
It is somehow easy to ignore the passages in Scripture that teach us who we are in the eyes of our Creator. Imagine disagreeing with a sculptor over what he intended to create with his masterpiece. Or imagine that when a potter creates a bowl, you decide it’s a plate and that your interpretation is the one that counts. As ridiculous as these hypotheticals sound, this is done over and over by God’s people. This is what Moses tried to get away with telling God in Exodus 4:
“But Moses said to the Lord, ‘Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.’ Then the Lord said to him, ‘Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?’” (Exodus 4:10-11, ESV)
How foolish of us to disagree with the Lord as to who we are.
“While we can speak the words, can we accept the truth deep in our souls that we are children of God, accepted and loved in His eyes?”
This topic is undoubtedly one of the most foundational issues for a Christian and the reason people who call themselves Christians can have such a struggle with living like it. I have co-written a book called Identity: Who You Really Are in Christ, with an amazing pastor, Anthony Walker. We explore what the world tells us about who we are and why it is vital to get this right personally as well as making this an opportunity for discipling others.
Our identity is given to us by God, not by the traumas we endure, the successes we enjoy, or the mistakes we’ve made. When we allow events in our lives to dictate the fundamental truth of who we are, we become swayed by feelings, by the culture, and by the enemy.
If we find ourselves part of the social elite at any given point in our lives, whether that is by birth, skill, or achievement, it is easy to grow confident in who we are as someone “chosen” by society. But what happens when we don’t perform, or we lose that popularity? So goes our selves if not grounded in Christ.
“What happens when we don’t perform, or we lose that popularity? So goes our selves if not grounded in Christ.”
By contrast, who God says we are does not ebb and flow with the tides of our society. Our identity in Christ is beautifully stable, as dependable and predictable as the rising sun. We must trust God’s Word and allow His truth about our identity to penetrate our minds and our hearts, and we must teach this to others. It requires speaking it over everyone that God puts in our paths.
God is our Creator. He is the one who determines what His creation is, and He tells us who we are in His Word. The truth is, we are saints, we are chosen, we have a purpose, and we are redeemed. These truths must be so ingrained in us that whatever the surrounding culture tries to tell us about ourselves, we can stand firm in who we are and to whom we belong.
For more on this topic, please check out the podcast series on identity on Scripture in Black and White as well as Anthony and my book Identity: Who You Really Are in Christ.
