Adolescent age only signifies a beginning of an identity crisis, but it does not stop there.
What is your identity? The way you think about yourself is prophetic as it has a self-fulfilling tendency. Drop those inchoate perceptions of yourself today as you start to find rest in your new identity.
“For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.” Proverbs 23:7
Your old identityOur old identity is attributed very much to Popularity, Performance, Possessions, and Power.
Popularity: We tend to build our identity from people’s expectations of us. The media lie causes celebrities like Britney Spears to dispose her identity, and change it to the whim and fancy of the bunfighting mass.
Performance: We seem to think we are what we do. Our jobs, our achievements, are the labels we incessantly attach to ourselves to build that self-worth. But the true value lies in what we are and not what we do. A change of jobs or living environment do not change who we are.
Posssessions: Obsession with material acquisitions is the perpetual illness. The proverbial “the more I have, the better I am” is not true if we are determined to have an own identity.
Power: Power does not corrupt. The truth is, our nature is corrupted by sin in the first place. So, a little power makes the corruption of the soul even more obvious. We weigh power as a measure of how much people will love, revere and acknowledge our existence.
Your new identity
You are God’s creation“So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27
It is written in poetry instead of a narrative method. Because poetry is a language of intimacy and love, God chosen to write this verse this way to express that personal relationship He yearns to have with us. We are the apex of God’s creation and He takes a personal interest in our lives.
You are God’s child
“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5he[a] predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—” Ephesians 1:4-5
This identity of being a child of God is not what we should trade for the filth of the world. When we start to fill our minds with lies of Satan, we prostituted this uniqueness that God wants to give to us as His child. Sin is the only thing that separates us from God. So many times when we are ‘lost’, it is often the result of penetrating sin in our lives. We all know that God loves us, but God does not necessarily like (‘like’ is a measure of preference) us. We need to live a life so that God can continue to delight in us.
You are God’s construction“Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,” Philippians 2:12
We are all God’s works in progress. The love of Christ is radically different from the love defined in the world. God’s love is done on the cross, “it is finished”, according to Jesus’s words. But the world requires work for rewards, it is a ‘to do’ kind of love. You need to work for what you want. But God has already worked his salvation in us. While he continues to work in us, we work out our salvation with fear and trembling each day. God is the architect of our souls, we must have full confidence that He can bring His work in us to completion one day.
Lastly, what we think of ourselves should be what God thinks of us. Find rest in your new identity today!
.jpg)
