“Once you had no identity as a people; now you are God’s people. Once you received no mercy; now you have received God’s mercy.” (1 Peter 2:10 NLT)
Identity is a very precarious topic these days, and it’s not only related to sexual identity. A friend in another state told me about a young man who identifies as a Cactus. How do you see yourself? Not only in terms of male or female (or plant), but as a human being, especially someone who is being transformed daily by God’s Spirit who indwells you?
J. D. Greear wrote: “We no longer labor to gain an identity, because we’ve been given one through Christ.” Our relationship with Jesus should supersede any other means of identifying ourselves. In Ephesians 2:12-13 Paul talks about our “exclusion from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without Hope. But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to Him through the blood of Christ.”
We often try to see our identity in Christ as our secret, an identity we’d prefer to keep undisclosed; however, being born again of the Spirit is very similar to being born as an infant, if it happened it’s very difficult to deny. I remember when my daughter was born. She was our first born and my parents had given me a movie camera for my graduation from Seminary.
At the hospital they started calling me “camera man” because I wanted to record every move she made. In my mind’s eye I believe that’s how the Lord feels about each of His children. Perhaps that’s why there’s such a celebration in heaven at the re-birth of every one of us. We’re not given a new identity in Jesus to keep it hidden, but to share it with everyone we know.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones made a declaration with which I identify when he said: “How divinely supreme is our Lord above all others!” The reality is I have nowhere close to the reasons to celebrate my daughter as I do to celebrate my Lord and Master, the Lord Jesus! There’s a very special place in my heart for my daughter and sons, but there’s a place reserved that no one else can fill but Jesus.
If you’re born again of the Spirit of God yet are seeking to hide the hope He’s planted in you, get over yourself and let people know you now have a new identity as a follower of Jesus. There are more people dying in the world in this generation because of their love for and devotion to Jesus than ever before. If our brothers and sisters in Christ are willing to die for Jesus, can’t you and I muster the courage to live for Him?
Some may fear being shunned or ostracized, but I assure you, on the authority of the Bible and my own experience, you will never walk alone! Dr. Charles Stanley reminds us: “As you walk through the valley of the unknown, you will find the footprints of Jesus both in front of you and beside you.” But the other piece of that is what Jesus said in Matthew 10:33: “But everyone who denies Me here on earth, I will also deny before My Father in heaven.”
There’s no higher calling than to find our identity in Jesus!
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 