Skip to main content

I Know You Are, But What Am I?



How important is your identity?  Why does it matter, who you think you are? I believe your identity impacts everything around you.  The way of engage people in conversation, the way you treat people, the kinds of relationships you develop, even what or who you worship, is greatly impacted on our identity or our lack of one.  Our identity affects the everyday choices we make as well.  Ultimately, even our successes and failures are viewed through the lenses of our own identity.

"Right after "Raymond" I had a world-is-my oyster attitude, but I found out I don't like oysters. I had this existential emptiness.  What is my purpose? Who am I? I had a big identity crisis." Ray Romano of "Everybody Loves Raymond"

As a believer in Christ, my identity is crucial to my purpose and destiny in life.  I believe Satan was aware of that long before I even I cared.  It definitely explains why he attacks our identity with such tenacity.  He even had the nerve to challenge the identity of Jesus Christ!

"If you are the Son of God...tell these stones to become bread...throw yourself down..." Matthew 4

Thank about this for a moment, if Satan had the nerve to question the identity of Jesus, knowing full well who Jesus was, why wouldn't he attack our identity as well?  We are so much more than meets the eye, much more than who we think we are.  Not because we are so awesome, but because our identity is hidden in Christ.

In Ephesians, Paul proclaims that we should praise God for what he has given us!  God has "blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ." (Ephesians 1:3) In Christ, we have eternal blessings, everlasting blessings that can not be earned or stolen from us.  In Christ, we are chosen, predestined, adopted, redeemed, forgiven, purposed, promised, inherited and dare I say it, LOVED BY GOD!  And in all these gifts, God provides for us lavishly.  Lavishly, meaning from his embarrassment of riches, his great abundance of power and love, not from his leftovers or as some afterthought. God has given us his absolute best, on purpose, in Christ Jesus.  When I let that sink in and realize how that impacts my identity, why would I not want to praise God?  We have been given every spiritual blessing in Christ.  There's nothing that we need that God does not supply in lavish abundance!  That's not just wishful thinking, folks.  That's our inheritance.  That is who we are in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 1:3-14

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 19: Write in Someone Else’s Voice

The Coward The boy’s voice awakened the man.   He found shelter in the abandoned school, in what was once, his school, his office.   Eleven, twelve, and thirteen year old students once ran down those halls, hurrying to their classes, hurrying to his English class. Now since the incident, no children survived that massacre.   That thought made the man shake with fear until he drifted off to sleep.   So when the man heard the boy’s voice screaming “Help Me!, Please Help Me!”   it shook the man from his sleep.   The man laid still.   His heart pounded as he waited to hear boy again.   “Help me! Please Somebody!” The man heard the boy loud and clear.   He could not pretend it was some animal or dream.   He knew it was a boy. And it paralyzed him.   The man clutched his knees to his chest and tucked his chin.   He took slow deep breaths, silent breaths, hoping the boy would believe he was on his own, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Day 18: Waiting

(unedited) Like many of you, I am not a huge fan of waiting.   There’s such a negative perception to waiting. As a society, we hate it, don’t we?   We hate it so much that companies know how to sell us their products.   Just tell us that it’s fast.   Fast food, fast delivery, fast internet service entices us.   Instant is another temptation.   Instant cash, instant coffee, Instagram! Okay, not quite the same but you know what I’m saying, right?   We complain about being hurried, but we gravitate toward the fast lane.   Passing someone is a lot more rewarding that keeping pace in the slow lane. I get it. Guilty as charged, ya know.   Patience, on the other hand, is a discipline. In my brief experience in the military, I was taught patience.   Most of the time it was in a twisted sort of way, like “hurry up and wait”.   Think about that for a moment.   You are given the emergency of ten seconds to be som...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Force of Divorce (part 1)

I don’t think we truly understand what divorce is and why God hates it. For example, if I gave you the Merriam Webster’s definition of divorce, the action or instance of legally dissolving a marriage , more than likely you'll find that definition insufficient. If you are divorced or your parents are divorced, you know that definition lacks depth and substance. It’s like a survivor of a devastating hurricane describing his experience as “I witnessed a tropical cyclone with winds of 156 mph that was accompanied by heavy rain thunder and lightning.” You know that surviving a category 5 hurricane is bit more involved than announcing a weather report. (Ask anyone who survived Hurricane Katrina.) And yet every survivor’s story is unique and personal. I especially believe we don’t get what divorce does to our children. I’m not saying that I completely understand it either. I’ve never been divorced, (not even close), but I do know how it affected me as a kid. ...
6 comments
Read more