Sunday, 16 August 2009

• Identity in Christ: Fundamental for a Christian Life in Full

   As Christians we are called to understand our specific identity in Christ. Identity in Christ is a subject I was highly convicted of this fall and ever since I have been watching God redeem this aspect of my life further and further.
  
  I am a psychology major. A big part of what I study is self-perception. According to my psych text book (which is undoubtedly flawed, but contains some truths), many of our actions and thoughts are directed for the purpose of maintaining strong self-esteem. When we fail at a task we blame the situation, when we succeed we attribute it to our natural talent (generally). Our identity and our self-esteem are highly related. As you see from the example I just gave, we identify ourselves with our successes and disassociate ourselves from our loses. We seek to have a good identity in different realms of life. Our identity is in the music we listen to, the clothes we wear, the schools we go to, the friends we have, the grades we get, what we study, our jobs, looks, houses, cars ect. To a degree all of this is ok—we are human beings, we have to wear clothes, we like certain music and we generally have to have jobs or go to school. What we do shapes who we are.
  
  I am a Christian. I am a student. I am an athlete (squash player, if you’ve heard of the sport). I am a decent singer. I am an avid dancer (for fun, nothing serious). I could go on, but these are some of the basic labels I can place on myself. This is generally what other people see, if they were trying to identify me. How do I label myself, though? Do I view myself as the world views me? Do I hold myself to worldly standards? As a Christian I know that this isn’t what I should do. Because I know God I know that there is only one opinion of me that truly matters, and that is His. He calls me to be “rooted in Christ” (Colossians 2:7).
  
  What does being rooted in Christ make me, then?
  
  1. I am a daughter of God.
  Romans 8—“For you did not receive a spirit that makes you slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry “Abba, Father.” (Romans 8:15) Christ is the first born among many brothers. By His sacrifice I get to share in his inheritance. What a joy! This is my primary identity.
  
  2. I was a sinner, but Christ’s blood has made me holy. Now I am a good tree, here to bear good fruit.
  Don’t get me wrong. I’m still struggling with sin. But when I look in the Bible I see a whole lot about how Christ has freed us from sin and how we as Christians are called to sin no more. I’m going to stand in that. We as Christians aren’t supposed to sin anymore, so lets get redeemed. I was deserving of death, but through Christ’s blood I am a saint. I stand on in the Scripture, it is not from my own understanding.
  (Romans 6:23, Luke 6:43-45)
  
  3. I am God’s beloved.
  Christ is the bridegroom, I am the bride (so are you!). It is really amazing how God is both our father and our husband. This is my other identity in Christ.
  
  I am sure that there are more ways in which we are called to identify ourselves in Christ, and I am eager to learn about them. In my life God has been continually teaching me about being His daughter and what that implies. Being God’s child means that I am the daughter of the King. What a place of privilege and blessing! As seen in Romans 8, there is nothing to fear when you are God’s child. What more could we ask for—if God is for us then who can be against us? I am constantly seeking to remind myself of that identity, fighting against the identities that the world wants me to esteem. The world wants me to place my worth in my schoolwork, my sport, my relationships, my looks etc. If I place my identity in any of those things, though, they are sure to fail me. They are not bad in and of themselves, but I cannot rely on them to be my foundation. God is the only truly reliable and stable source of identity, and in Him my self-esteem should be very strong but humble, because he loves me with everything, enough to die for me.
  
  This song by Lecrae does a great job of saying all of this. I wasn’t trying to rip off Lecrae’s idea in this post, this has been a place of growth and conviction for me over the past school year, but Lecrae sums it up wonderfully (and lays it down to a nice rhythm ).
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E26W6L3n6Rg&feature=related

  Do you find your identity in Christ? How can we come to understand our Christ-given identity? What are other identities that Christ gives us?
  

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