Embracing True Identity

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Embracing A True Identity

When we have a faulty view of our identity, it breeds anxiety, depression, sin, and hiding. These disguise themselves as our friends while we struggle to stay afloat. And the cycle of sin, remorse, shame, depression, more sin, more darkness is wearying. Take heart. God’s desire for us isn’t that we’d stay stuck and without hope. Freedom doesn’t have to be a dream. The work on the cross makes it a reality.

The articles below, excerpts from Josh’s blog, examine these ideas and more.

Gold to Stones

The good news doesn’t start with people as sinners with whom God is angry. It starts in the beginning. And if we miss this, the good news will fail to be good news.

In the beginning, God made man and woman to be the Imago Dei—the image of God on the earth. By God’s design, all of creation recognized them with joyful awe. They were the ones the Creator had joyfully made like Himself. Or as John Eldredge has expressed it, man and woman were “little statues of God walking around.”

It was glorious. They were glorious.

So what happened? They were the ones created by God to be like God, but they bought the lie that they could make themselves like God. Although God’s glory radiated from them, it didn’t originate in them. It was a gift.

God didn’t revoke their glory; they gave it up, traded it for something far less.

In Paul’s words, they “exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man…” (Romans 1:23).

Since then, we’ve been trying to get it back. It can’t be done. (You can trade a brick of gold for a stone, but a pile of stones won’t buy you a brick of gold.)

And yet, through all history, through all we’ve done, all we’ve settled for, all we’ve lost, God’s heart has always been for us. He desires that his glory would radiate from us, that man and woman would again be the best expression of him on the earth.

This is why Jesus came—not to cover us up so the Father wouldn’t see our sin, but to clean sin from us, free us from its power, and restore the glory of God in us.

The question is, will we let him?

You can’t make yourself glorious. It can only happen as you unite your life with Christ. “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27b).

 

Spark

The internal struggle against sin is itself reason to hope. It’s evidence of the Master’s work in your heart, a spark of goodness within that wants to grow.

But for many who struggle, however hard they try, the spark of good remains just a spark, seemingly ineffective amidst the familiar dark waters of temptation.

Can you relate?

• You want to stop yelling at your kids, but you lost your temper again.

• You love your husband, but your best friend is texting and you long to be in her arms again.

• You want to stop looking at pornography, but it’s 2 a.m. and you’re still online looking for more.

You wonder if you’ll ever change, ever leave this sin behind once and for all? Can the spark in you become a burning flame?

 

It can. I say this confidently not because I know you. But because of the spark.

Where did it come from, this tenacious little light? Did you generate it on your own? No. If you’re in Christ, He put it in you.  And He’s very good at what He does.

Consider this: You’ve fallen repeatedly to sin for years, yet the spark in you that wants to do good still burns. How could this be? How much dousing can it take without being extinguished?

Apparently a lot.

What does this say about the One who put it there and His love for you? What does it say about the new heart He’s given you? Could it be He’s made you stronger, more committed, more persevering, more of a fighter than you’ve yet believed?

Could it be the spark is so enduring because, contrary to what you’ve believed, it’s the real you, and the sin that tempts you is the part that doesn’t belong?

Paul understands this when he writes in Romans 7, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do…As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”

And then he also reminds us in Romans 8:37 that we are more than conquerors through Him who loves us. Not victims. Not failures. But conquerors.

Where have you been falling repeatedly? Instead of beating yourself up for the sins you’ve been falling to, consider the miraculous tenacity of the spark in you and what it means about who lives in you and who you are.

 

Triage, Change, and Consecration

If you’ve sought major change in any area of your life, you may have discovered that God’s priorities for bringing about change are often different than our own.

We may come to him seeking freedom from pornography, wanting to be rid of our insecurity, needing physical healing, hoping for an end to our homosexual desires, or desperate to get out of debt.

But like a good triage doctor treating a patient with multiple life-threatening wounds, God will sometimes leave one area for a time because something else needs attention first.

To us, the problem that demands immediate attention is obvious: It’s the one causing us, or someone we love, the most pain. And so we cry out, “What are you doing, God? Can’t you see? Don’t you care about the pain I’m in!?” Of course he does.

The cross testifies to us in our pain. He understands.

But the cross also testifies to us through our pain. And so, with each change that has not come (even over a long time) we have a choice:

Abandon the journey or consecrate the journey.

To consecrate this journey to him means he becomes our main desire, not the change we’re after or any of its benefits. To consecrate the journey to him, means entrusting it to him, setting it apart to him as an offering. Consecrating this journey means giving up our rights to have the life we want, and instead gratefully receiving the life he grants.

When we consecrate this journey to God, everything takes on new meaning.

Our victories and our failures alike become opportunities to revel in God’s grace; resisting temptation and leaving a desire unmet become acts of worship; the objects of our temptation become those we fight for not against; and the journey itself—however long it takes and no matter how outwardly successful it may or may not seem—becomes an opportunity to grow more intimate with Jesus.

 

When Experience Isn’t a Good Thing

Nothing on earth has the authority to define you. Your identity—your true identity—is who God created you to be.

And yet, what you experience regularly informs your sense of who you are. In other words, your experiences—your circumstances, interactions, feelings, temptations, actions, etc.—all give you their opinion about who you are.

And as you might guess, their opinion frequently doesn’t align with who God says you are.

For example, do you feel you don’t measure up compared to others? Have you been abused, used, or abandoned? Do you feel like damaged goods? Do you struggle with habitual sins like lust, rage, gluttony, promiscuity, homosexual activity, envy, or fear?

Maybe you can’t remember a time when one or more of these wasn’t a part of your experience.

Maybe you can’t imagine a version of you apart from them. Nonetheless, they do not speak the truest thing about you.

If this is hard for you to believe, try this:

• Ask Jesus this simple question: What have my experiences (my circumstances, relationships, feelings, desires, or actions) told me about myself that is untrue?

• Spend some time in prayer, see Jesus absorbing each of these untrue labels into his body on the cross for you (2 Cor. 5:21).

• Then, like a child, ask: Jesus, who am I? Who do you say that I am?

Keep asking, and keep listening for his true words. There you’ll discover that…

You are a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). You are His workmanship (Ephesians 2:10). You are chosen (1 Peter 2:9). You are a child of God (Galatians 3:26). You are the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27).

Explore the Scripture for more truths about who you are as one who is in Christ.

The process of realigning your perceptions of yourself with what’s true can be lengthy and challenging.  And it’s worth it. Whatever faulty names your experience has been giving, Jesus has better for you.

 

You can sign up to receive Josh’s weekly blog in your email inbox by going to www.regenerationministries.org/blog.

 

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By Rev. Bob Ragan

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