Forty-Two Identity Markers for Believers

Paul Tautges

As believers in Jesus Christ it’s easy to lose our bearings when we forget who we are. This is every Christian’s identity crisis. The answer is for us to recognize the false identities that have robbed us of our joy, peace, contentment, and security and replace them with what is already true of us because of being united with Christ by faith.

For the past year the Holy Spirit has been renewing my mind and refreshing my soul by directing my focus to portions of the Word of God that emphasize who I am in Christ.

The portion where my heart dwelt this morning is the first half of the book of Ephesians. The first three chapters of the apostle’s great theological treatise are filled with numerous realities that we need to consistently claim as already belonging to us. If you need to reorient your mind, as to who you really are, reflect with me on these truths:

1. I am a saint, a set-apart-one, set apart by God for God (1:1).

2. I am a child of God. God is my father (1:2)

3. I am a servant of God. Jesus is my Lord (1:2).

4. I am a recipient of every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (1:3).

5. I am chosen by God in Christ (1:4).

6. I am predestined (1:5).

7. I am adopted as a son (1:5).

8. I am a recipient of God’s kindness (1:5).

9. I am an object of God’s grace (1:6).

10. I am in union with the Beloved One, Jesus (1:6).

11. I am redeemed through His blood (1:7).

12. I am forgiven of my sin (1:7).

13. I am a recipient of God’s mystery, the mystery of His will in Christ (1:9).

14. I am a recipient and owner of an indescribable inheritance (1:11).

15. I am predestined according to His purpose (1:11).

16. I am a means of God’s glory (1:12).

17. I am sealed in Christ by the Holy Spirit (1:13-14).

18. I am a member of Christ’s church, His bride (1:23).

19. I am loved by God because of His great mercy (2:4).

20. I am alive in Christ, with Christ (2:5).

21. I am raised with Christ (2:6).

22. I am seated in the heavens with Christ, awaiting the full experience of the riches of His grace and kindness (2:6-7).

23. I am saved (2:8).

24. I am the workmanship of God (2:10).

25. I am [re]created in Christ for the good works God has already prepared for me (2:10).

26. I am no longer dependent upon the flesh (2:11).

27. I am no longer excluded from God (2:12).

28. I am no longer a stranger to God (2:12).

29. I am no longer hopeless (2:12).

30. I am no longer without God (2:12).

31. I am no longer far away from God (2:12).

32. I am brought near to God through the blood of Christ (2:13).

33. I am at peace with God, no longer at war (2:14).

34. I am a member of one body in Christ (2:16).

35. I already have free access to the Father (2:18).

36. I am a fellow citizen of God’s household, kingdom (2:19).

37. I am built upon Christ and His doctrine given through the apostles (2:20).

38. I am a stone in God’s temple (2:21).

39. I am in the Spirit (2:22).

40. I am a steward of the gospel of God’s grace now revealed (3:2-5).

41. I am a minister of God’s grace in the gospel (3:7-8).

42. I am a part of God’s eternal purpose (3:11).

All of this is already true of me because I am in Christ. Hallelujah! What a Savior.

Posted at: https://counselingoneanother.com/2020/11/04/the-answer-to-every-christians-identity-struggl/

The ‘New You’ Isn’t the Answer

TREVIN WAX

When life doesn’t turn out the way we want, the relentless quest for both self-acceptance and self-perfection leads some people to retreat and consider starting over. It’s time for a new design.

The “look in” approach to life that prioritizes looking inside yourself to discover who you are, your true self, your desires, your dreams, then looking around to others to find affirmation and applause, can result in failures that lead us to a redo. I call this the “redesign” phase. I tried to pursue my dreams and desires, but perhaps I got it wrong. Let’s try it again––a new me, with different dreams and desires. So you take the effort to go back into yourself, figure out what it is you really want, and bring that out to the world again. 

You see this reinvention in the entertainment industry with stars who change up their image in order to remain relevant. In some cases, it may be that the famous person doesn’t know anymore who he is, and so he tries on different personas much like he’d give a performance, trying to figure out what fits. In other cases, perhaps the celebrity felt she was more authentic in the past, but over time came to doubt the flattery from all her fans and so adopted a new design—a different persona—to see if her followers would still accept and love her. 

Our Longing for Newness

You don’t have to be a movie star or celebrity to be drawn by the desire to have a new start or develop a new public image. In an age of social media where we constantly broadcast the details of our lives, it’s easier and feels more natural to try to redesign yourself than ever before. And that’s what many do. After growing frustrated with the person we’ve presented to the world, we may retreat for a time, or disappear from online interaction, not so we can stay forever hidden from the eyes of others, but so we can change costumes or rework our image. We consider ways we might redesign our lives, our look, our way of being in the world so we can be more popular or because we feel bored or unfulfilled. We used to call this a midlife crisis, but nowadays it can happen every few years. In the adolescent stages, it seems like it can happen even more frequently.

In an age of social media where we constantly broadcast the details of our lives, it’s easier and feels more natural to try to redesign yourself than ever before.

This longing for newness—to have a new name, a new image, a new reputation—drives us deeper and deeper inside ourselves, but all the digging begins to wear us out and wear us down. Just as we felt overly flattered or overly criticized for the person we put on display before, we wonder if we will feel the same after unveiling our new self. The doubts and self-criticisms mount in our hearts, and we wonder if we’re really being authentic, or if we’re sacrificing the path to reaching our fullest potential. The endless self-analysis can make us feel like our phone or computer when there are too many apps or windows open; it’s best to just shut down and restart (or look for an upgrade). 

The commonsense wisdom of the world says, Do it again. Go through the process again. Distressed and disappointed with yourself? Don’t wallow in guilt and anxiety. Just take another good, long look inside to discover your deepest desires, find a better way to define yourself, then display your individuality for the world to see and affirm. The cycle continues. We emerge with a “new and improved” self, and we go through the same anxiety-ridden process of seeing how others respond.

Finding Yourself by Looking Up

Self-discovery displayed for all to see, hoping to find affirmation, failing, “redesigning” ourselves to become someone new, and furthering the cycle continues to leave us depressed and unsure of ourselves. We still haven’t found fulfillment, purpose, or peace. We’ve found the opposite.

Change the process completely and not start by looking inside yourself, but by looking outside yourself, looking up to the only One who can truly make a ‘new you’—a better you, the you he created you to be.

The world’s anthem that all you need is to be you, to express yourself, to keep trying until you find “yourself,” over and over again, fails at so many levels. You end up simply running in circles when what you need to do is to stop.

Change the process completely and not start by looking inside yourself, but by looking outside yourself, looking up to the only One who can truly make a “new you”—a better you, the you he created you to be. There, and only there, are the answers we’re looking for.

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/new-you-isnt-answer/

Become Who You Already Are

Realizing Our Identity in Christ

Article by Gary Millar Principal, Queensland Theological College

I have no idea how many books I have read over the years — nor, if I am honest, can I remember all that much of what they contained. But there are a few books, and a few sentences in those books, that have lodged so deeply in my heart and mind that I can honestly say they have shaped my life in ways I can’t begin to describe.

One of those sentences is found in Martyn Lloyd-Jones’s expositions of Ephesians 1, God’s Ultimate Purpose. In those sermons, Lloyd-Jones repeatedly reminded his hearers, and then his readers like me, that “our greatest need is to become who we already are in Christ.” That single sentence changed everything for me as it opened up a whole new world of self-understanding.

The Truth That Anchors Us

The idea that I should be who I already am in Christ laid an entire foundation for my identity and constructed a pathway to security, significance, and satisfaction. It saved me no end of pain and confusion in my walk with the Lord Jesus Christ and has made me passionate to help new Christians discover their real identity in Christ. This desire also spilled over into a small book, Need to Know, which was thirty years in the making.

When people come to new life in Christ, our first instinct is to teach them to do. To read the Bible, attend church, become part of a small group, give, and so on. And of course, all these things are important. But there is a prior step. If we are to negotiate living for Christ in all the muck of life, if we are to cope with the ups and downs of our emotions, and the whims of circumstance, and the sheer pressure of our human brokenness, then the first step is to make sure that we know who we are as children of God, as those who have been united to the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the truth that will enable us to get out of bed in the morning and face the delight and despair of our world. This is the truth that will enable us to cope with success and failure without missing a step. This is the truth that will set us up to walk humbly and confidently with Christ through the day, and enable us to reflect on the day that has passed with repentance and faith, and to go to sleep resting in the peace that flows from God’s forgiveness. Knowing ourselves through the gospel is just about the most practical, most necessary truth there is for flourishing in our messy world.

Living as Those Who Know God

The Bible says over and over again that we have been brought to new life in Christ, but are still works in progress — still scarred and influenced by sin, although not controlled by it. We have already been changed — our true selves are now bound up in Christ (Colossians 3:4) — but we still need to be finished. This is why we need to become who we already are. The closing verses of John’s first letter state this truth as powerfully as any part of Scripture:

We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. (1 John 5:18–20)

“Our identity in Christ is one of those critical truths that, if grasped early in our Christian life, will avert all kinds of problems and issues later on.”

Who are we? John announces to us that as those who have believed the gospel of God, we have been born of God. We are from (or perhaps better, of) God. Quoting Jeremiah 31:34, John says we have been given understanding, which flows from our new covenant hearts and minds, so that we are now people who know God. And because of that, we need to make a break from sin and constantly put it to death.

This means that from the very beginning of our Christian lives, we need to grasp the fact that we are both justified and enduringly sinful, forgiven yet flawed, utterly secure yet left with much work to do, as we press on to that for which Christ Jesus has taken hold of us (Philippians 3:12).

Be Who You Already Are

The beautiful, new-covenant, satisfying, gospel-shaped life to which we have been introduced in Christ is the only life worth living. That’s why John adds this note to close his letter: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21). There is a clear choice: live with the God of the gospel, realizing that we are new people who are being transformed by the gospel, or opt for the emptiness of idolatry. Knowing who we are in Christ enables us to make that choice day after day for our whole lives.

One of my great concerns is seeing new Christians well-grounded in the gospel. I know that often this is a time-critical process, as from a human perspective, there is a real risk of the seeds being snatched away rather than taking root (Mark 4:4).

Our identity in Christ is one of those critical truths that, if grasped early in our Christian life, will avert all kinds of problems and issues later on. In Christ, we get to know the God of the gospel, Father, Son, and Spirit. He is the God who speaks to us — not least about ourselves. For in the gospel, God tells us that we are already his, secure in Christ, and that having set us free from the power of sin, he is utterly committed to transforming still sinful people like us into the likeness of Jesus. Therefore, we can become who we already are.

Gary Millar serves as Principal of Queensland Theological College in Queensland, Australia. He is author of Need to Know: Your Guide to the Christian Life.

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/become-who-you-already-are

Your Thoughts Reveal Your Functional Identity

Mark Grant

It benefits you to explore your functional identity during a season of difficulty. Wayward hearts and vulnerable souls can easily skew their identities, resulting in the construction of false worship structures, which when present, can lead to increased hopelessness and difficulty during trials.

Caring for a friend in the midst of a trial is difficult. Feelings of inadequacy can surface as one searches for the perfect words in an attempt to ease the weariness of their soul. Empathic listening is always the perfect starting point, but if “soul care” is to take place, the conversation must go deeper than superficial discussions.

With gentleness and patience, the conversation must lead and encourage them to engage with God to embrace His Sovereign and purposeful work in their lives. God uses all things for their good (Romans 8:28-29), and often these seasons provide fertile ground to expose idols of the heart and gaps in an individual’s Gospel understanding.

Due to our fallen natures, we tend to be blind to the things that move us, which are the catalysts that fuel our engines. Often those who are biblically literate have no sound grasp on the ruling motives of their hearts.

One may question the wisdom of this line of reasoning during a season of difficulty. For example, how does directing a wife to understand the idols of her heart help when she is reeling from her husband’s recently confessed adultery?

From a Christian, gospel-driven perspective, this type of conversation is profitable both practically and spiritually.

Suffering brings weariness to the soul, which can be made worse with sin and idolatry (1 Peter 2:11). The purity of your worship directly impacts the health of your soul, and the identification and dismantling of false worship structures (idols/misplaced desires) will help your soul find rest.

Heart idols are the fruit of improper thinking, and if this thinking is left unchecked, the conclusions reached in the midst of a season of suffering can lead to further harm by seeking counterfeit solutions.

Even in the midst of a life turned upside down, you must remember Christ didn’t come to save you from a bad marriage, or a lousy job. Your greatest need remains Christ; for your salvation and your ongoing sanctification. As Paul Tripp said,

The good news of the kingdom is not freedom from hardship, suffering, and loss. It is the news of a Redeemer who has come to rescue me from myself. His rescue produces change that fundamentally alters my response to these inescapable realities.

Humility positions you to receive Christ’s grace (James 4:6). As David Powlison states,

Christ powerfully meets people who are aware of their real need for help. Christ’s forte is our acknowledged need in the face of compulsions from within and pressures from without” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).

1. How can you help a friend biblically understand themselves and to better respond to their season of suffering?

2. How can an individual navigate through all the storylines, the emotions, and the hurt to help their friend see the tendencies of their heart?

One way is to recognize how their worship reflects their identity. It is often effective to use a person’s self-defined identity as an entryway, helping them ascertain their purpose in life, and gain a more accurate assessment of themselves and their environment (Psalm 139:23).

This avenue of inquiry can often bring a freshness and clarity in their thinking as they focus on the workings of their heart; ideally leading them to a renewed dependence on Christ for all things (John 15:5). Asking these kinds of questions can help them find rest for their soul, and empower forward moving, hopeful-filled progress.

Christian counseling is counseling which exposes our motives—our hearts and our world—in such a way that the authentic Gospel is the only possible answer. – David Powlison

A Christian’s True Identity

The Westminster Catechism states man’s chief purpose is to, “Glorify God and enjoy Him forever” though sin has taken humanity away from this original position and purpose.

Individually, we were created to serve God, but sin confused everything, tangling our hearts with pride, false idols, false securities, and false saviors all knotted together into one disordered mess from which we cannot free ourselves. Only by grace are we given eyes to see the depth of our complex hearts and two-faced motives, and only by grace do we find a Great Physician committed to untangling our disordered hearts.” – Tony Reinke

Hearts are continuously enticed, tempted and deceived from the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 John 2:16).

Hidden and insidious desires are always looking to shape lust-filled hearts. You choose things that you perceive as good and desirable; things you think will result in success, comfort, and significance. Over time these selections metamorphose into your identity.

How do we make an identity out of temptation? By collapsing what you desire with who you are. – Rosario Butterfield

A man may desire to become successful in his career. There is nothing wrong with this desire, but if he is not careful, he can start to place his value in his career. As a result, his career becomes his identity, and his focus turns away from Christ and onto the many opportunities or threats to his career. As a result, his joy, or soul-health, links to his performance at work, which can manifest a multitude of false worship structures.

A woman desires to be the perfect mother and starts to define her worth as such. When this happens, her children’s behavior in public will take on a self-focused commentary, and she becomes fearful about how their actions reflect her parenting ability. Her joy, or soul-health, links to something apart from Christ.

False identities can even attach themselves to ministry. If a pastor’s identity shifts away from Christ to being a pastor, his allegiance will become askew. He will analyze trends in church attendance, the reception of his messages, or the divorce rate of couples he counsels and reaches unfortunate conclusions about himself.

In all cases, their thinking turns temporal and their focus inward. God’s role of provider becomes the primary attribute of worship, and unanswered prayers lead to unbelief.

Given the wayward tendencies of fallen hearts, the first step you must take each and every day is to remind yourself of your true identity. During the business of family and work, with all of the entanglements of church and community, you must continue the daily work to orient your life to Christ (Colossians 3:11).

“If I may speak my own experience, I find that to keep my eye simply upon Christ, as my peace, and my life, is by far the hardest part of my calling. A thousand such surrenders I have made, and a thousand times I have interpretatively retracted them.” – John Newton

You can see the well-known pastor and hymnist engaged in the conflict we all face as Christians. You want to do right but find yourself doing the opposite (Romans 7:15). It is the daily call to die to yourself (Matthew 16:24).

Understanding the Battle

The fight for your identity is the same flesh-Spirit battle you face as a Christian (Galatians 5:17). The enemy, while using the world’s temptations, aligns with your flesh to shift your identity, and ultimately your focus away from Christ.

We should be careful at the temptation to minimize our involvement in taking the bait, for, the sinner’s rebellious nature finds the forbidden thing more attractive, not because it is inherently attractive, but because it furnishes an opportunity to assert one’s self-will. – John MacArthur

Seeing yourself in the light of truth requires Spiritual discernment (Obadiah 1:3), and a firm grasp of the Gospel to overcome the indwelling shame, fear, and guilt that is resident in your flesh, and which makes it so difficult to accept the truth about yourself (John 2:25).

The freedom of the Gospel only comes when your focus is building up your new identity in Christ and leaving fleshly-inspired identities behind (Philippians 3:13-14).

Many Christians never fully get to this point. Their souls are too tender, too sensitive from past evil or years of poor soul care. It is similar to providing care to a burn victim; any attention initially brings the pain. It is too excruciating to peel back the many layers of life’s self-centered solutions to allow a new identity (2 Corinthians 5:17) to take root. As a result, they stand firm in who they think they are, daily defending their self-reliant tendencies and self-righteous ways.

Enticement is the hidden danger of a false identity; it has no power or legitimacy and requires “self” to defend, justify, promote, refine, reinvent, and maintain. You could say it creates a heavy yoke (Matthew 11:30) and a propensity towards unbelief. Thus, when helping a hurting friend think correctly and biblically about their identity, the process must be executed with patience, gentleness, and love.

A Final Word

I believe it is important to state that a properly aligned, in Christ identity does not eliminate suffering from your life, but it does create a new type of freedom, as evidenced in the life of Apostle Paul. It is evident that his life was full of hardships (2 Corinthians 11:23-29), but he was able to respond positively. For instance, despite being in jail, Paul was able to see a gain (Philippians 1:12), but only because his identity was in the Gospel; his joy was Christ’s joy.

When evil enters your world, it only impacts your temporal life. Your identity in Christ is eternal and remains unchanged leading you to experience a peace that surpasses your understanding (Philippians 4:7).

To illustrate, I will borrow from Chicken Little’s demise. Some of life’s difficulties and challenges, represented by rocks of varying shapes and sizes, will fall from the sky and disrupt your existence. If your identity is in something other than Christ, that rock will deliver a crushing blow to yourself, leaving you dazed and confused.

If your identity is in Christ, these rocks will no longer have a crippling effect. Although they still have to be dealt with, you can navigate around the obstacle and address the disruption in a much calmer, Gospel-centered, liberating way–in a way that reminds you (and others) that you are living characters in God’s wonderful story of redemption.

Three Future Articles

This article is an introduction, discussing how your identity reveals your worship structures. Three additional articles will follow to help further your understanding and provide practical examples.

1. The first exposes and uncovers the role your inner voice plays in the spiritual battle. If left unchecked, it leads you away from your in Christ identity, leading you down the path to sin.

2. The second article addresses how your identity determines how you respond to the heat of martial conflict, and how an in Christ identity allows for a redemptive response.

3. The third article discusses the importance of having the right identity for a wife caught in a loveless marriage.

I hope this series will help equip you to minister to the souls God has placed in your path.

Mark Grant

Mark Grant was raised in Columbus, Ohio and attended Ohio State. He married Lesa as he finished his MA in Mechanical Engineering. He moved to Los Angeles to work in the Aerospace Industry. After 5 years of a difficult marriage, he and Lesa were saved. Shortly thereafter, they moved to Portland, Oregon and were blessed with a daughter. He currently works for the Navy as a civilian engineer. He lives outside Philadelphia.

Posted at: https://rickthomas.net/thoughts-reveal-functional-identity/

Book Review of "Affirming God's Image"

Review by Tim Challies

It’s sometimes amazing to consider how quickly societal mores change, how quickly an idea can go from unthinkable to acceptable, from having great social stigma attached to its acceptance to having even greater social stigma attached to its rejection. There may be no better example of this than transgenderism. Less than a generation ago, few would have dared suggest that there is no necessary link between biological sex and gender identity. Today, though, it is commonly believed that a person with a female body may actually be a man or a person with a male body may actually be a woman. In fact, those who believe otherwise are considered bigoted and hateful. And in this context, Christians rightly ask, What does the Bible say about this? What should Christians believe about it?

This is the subject of a short but powerful new book by J. Alan Branch titled Affirming God’s Image. The purpose of his book is made clear in the subtitle: Addressing the Transgender Question with Science and Scripture. He makes it equally clear what audience he had in mind as he carried out his research and wrote his words. “My intended audience is sincere Christians seeking to understand the modern phenomenon of transgenderism.” Therefore, this is not a book meant primarily to hand to a skeptical friend or, even more, to someone who is transgendered. Though it may bring some benefits in such uses, they do not quite meet its purpose. Rather, it is meant to inform Christians about the growing transgender debate and to show Christians how the Bible speaks to the issue.

The transgender discussion involves several key themes that Branch needs to address:

1) Embracing transgender identity should be celebrated; 2) God is actually behind one’s transgender identity; 3) People claim to have a female soul trapped in a male body, or a male soul trapped in a female body; 4) If you love children, you will agree with the avant-grade stand regarding transgenderism; 5) It is a noble and brave thing voluntarily to go through extensive surgery to transform one’s gender appearance; 6) Such an experience is liberating.

His basic argument is that transgenderism is not a trait like hair or skin color, but instead an identity that is rooted in a number of causes and completely inconsistent with Christian ethics. This isn’t to say, of course, that Christians should be anything less than loving toward those who disagree or compassionate to those who claim to be transgendered. Yet Christians must also know what the Bible says and be willing to affirm it, no matter the cost.

Branch begins with a brief history of transgenderism, showing that while there may have been some transgender-like behavior in the past, this modern-day phenomenon is, well, distinctly modern. In the form we know it know, it grew out of the early twentieth century, joined with the sexual revolution, and now marks the ultimate rejection of Judeo-Christian sexual ethics. He concludes that, according to the Christian worldview, “there is no such thing as a man trapped in a woman’s body or a woman trapped in a man’s body: These concepts originate in misleading language games fostered by wrongheaded ideas rooted in deconstruction.”

Next he introduces the vocabulary of transgenderism, carefully defining the common terms—something that matters to those who want to accurately understand the issue and know how to engage it. Here you’ll find your introduction to terms like “cisgender” and “genderqueer” and “gender identity.” Having laid this groundwork, he turns to the Bible to critique transgenderism, then discusses arguments people use to claim that people are born transgender. He spends some time discussing the actual process through which people attempt to transition from one gender to another—puberty blockers, hormone therapies, gender reassignment surgery, and so on. And then, as the book draws near to its end, he addresses practical issues related to the family and the local church.

As he does all this, he takes a clear stand. “Transgenderism is not consistent with a life of Christian discipleship. A robust understanding of Scripture insists we embrace our natal sex and live in accordance with that sex: In other words, to use the secular distinction, we strive to embrace the gender consistent with our sex. Imitating the opposite sex is strictly forbidden. Likewise, participation in homosexual behavior is sin.”

Branch says in his introduction that he means to “join conviction with compassion” and he does this well. He is fair, he is respectful, he is understanding, but he never waves from his biblically-informed convictions. He combines all that into a book that serves as a strong and trustworthy guide to one of the most pressing issues of our day. Affirming God’s Image will serve individual Christians well and it will serve churches well. I am glad to recommend it.

Know Who You Are Not

Article by Marshall Segal

Many of the problems that plague us as Christians begin with misplaced identity.

We forget who we are as chosen, purchased, and commissioned children of God, and think of ourselves primarily through the lens of something else — success at work, the well-being of our children, the fruitfulness of our ministry, our feelings of fulfillment, or our ability to achieve our goals and dreams. We may even see ourselves almost exclusively through our sin (we are defined by our greatest temptation or besetting struggle), or through our suffering (we are defined by the greatest distress we experience).

“Many of the problems that plague us as Christians begin with misplaced identity.”

When the apostle Peter wrote his first of two letters, he was writing to followers of Christ under siege — with relentless affliction, with persistent persecution, with tenacious temptation. Suffering screamed that they were forgotten or unloved. Their opponents shouted that they had abandoned their faith, their families, and their communities, and that they’d fallen for a horrible fraud. And Satan whispered that nothing had changed, that they were who they’d always been.

As the believers were assaulted with these messages, Peter intercepts their missiles with promises from heaven: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). You are not who you were. You are not what you feel. You are not where you’re tempted to fall. Now, you are his.

1. You are not who you were.

One of the easiest ways for Satan to lure you back into sin is to make you think you never left.

Peter says, “Once you were not a people. . . . Once you had not received mercy” (1 Peter 2:10). He’s honest about how bleak things were before they found Christ, when they were dead and rotting in their trespasses and sins, when they let the passions of their flesh have their way, when they were sons and daughters of never-ending torment (Ephesians 2:1–3) — separated from Christ, cut off from his promises, “having no hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). That was you, Peter says.

But God (Ephesians 2:4). He did not leave you hopeless in your trespasses and sins. “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13). Peter reminds us that we are no longer who we once were. “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:10). Whenever Satan says, “Look at who you were,” we say, “Yes, I was, but God.”

If you are in Christ, you are not who you were. You have been chosen by God into the family of God. Mercy has made you new. As John Newton, a slave trader turned pastor, once wrote, “I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am.”

2. You are not what you feel.

If Satan cannot convince you that you’re who you’ve always been, he may try to make you question whether it’s even good news to be God’s. He may send all manner of suffering and adversity, if he’s allowed, against God’s loud and clear declaration in Christ, “I love you.”

We know Peter’s readers were suffering intensely and unjustly (1 Peter 1:6; 2:19). They were being tested by fire (1 Peter 1:7). And fire can make the love of God feel faint. Until it slowly produces a stronger, sweeter, more durable faith, a faith far more precious than gold (1 Peter 1:7).

“Whenever Satan says, ‘Look at who you were,’ we say, ‘Yes, I was, but God.’”

With the barrage of persecution and hostility coming against them, Peter blows away the smoke from all the spiritual gunfire, and he says of their enemies, “They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do” (1 Peter 2:8). They may look fortunate and formidable for now, but as they abuse God’s children and mock his voice, they are walking into a destiny of damnation. They have no idea who they truly are.

“But you” — next verse — “you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” (1 Peter 2:9). You are chosen by God, from all the people he has ever made. You have been given access to his throne through his Son. God held himself back for hundreds of years, always speaking through a prophet or priest, and then he opened the holy of holies to you — to anyone who believes in Jesus. He has made you a holy nation — set apart, Christlike, filled with and empowered by his own Spirit. And you belong to him. He sent his Son to have you.

Therefore, in your own fiery trials of various kinds, “Rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:13). You are not what you feel like in suffering and adversity. You are valued by the most valuable one. Nothing can separate you from his love (Romans 8:35).

3. You are not where you fall.

Every follower of Christ has repented from sin and yet continues to battle temptation. The apostle John says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). While we have to be honest and vigilant about any sin in us, remaining sin does not define us anymore. Paul says to sinners, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). The sin patterns in your past are not who you are. Christ is teaching you, by his Spirit, to live as the new person God has made you.

Our new identity in Christ is not a license to lay down our arms against temptation. By no means! When sin crouches at our door, our new identity gives us the courage to charge through the door with the sword of the Spirit, the word of our God (Ephesians 6:17). Peter writes, “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles” — this earth and all its brokenness and all its temptations is not your home anymore — “to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11). The same passions that left you for dead apart from Christ will still attack. But they used to ambush unarmed, defenseless children; now they find fully armed warriors guarded by God.

If you are one with Christ and at war with your remaining sin, you are not your greatest temptations or your besetting iniquities. Through Christ, you are without blemish in the eyes of God, and no one and no thing can snatch you from his heart and hands.

Peak of Who We Are

Embedded in these verses about our identity is a commission which may be the highest peak of who we are in Christ: “that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). You are set apart in Christ not just to enjoy God, but to showothers his worth. You belong to God not just to live forever, but to testifyforever. You are chosen by God not just to be, but to go.

“You are not who you were. You are not what you feel. You are not where you’re tempted to fall. Now, you are his.”

What we proclaim about Jesus Christ is not only one of the greatest evidences that we are someone new; it is also one of the greatest privileges of being who we are in him. For three years, he went from city to city reviving the lost and building his kingdom. And then, having died and risen, he handed his Spirit-filled keys to the church — not to the wise by worldly standards, or to the powerful and influential, or to those of noble birth (1 Corinthians 1:26), but to the new. What Christ does in the world today, he does through people like you, regardless of who you once were, how weak you may feel, and where you’re tempted to fall.

When you were brought from darkness into God’s magnificent light, you were given marvelous power for a great task: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). You are a witness of excellence to a watching and dying world.

Know who you are not, and live, in the power of the Spirit, in light of who you are in Christ — chosen, anointed, holy, loved, and sent.

Marshall Segal (@marshallsegal) is a writer and managing editor at desiringGod.org. He’s the author of Not Yet Married: The Pursuit of Joy in Singleness & Dating. He graduated from Bethlehem College & Seminary. He and his wife, Faye, have a son and live in Minneapolis.

posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/know-who-you-are-not?fbclid=IwAR33X97VOlRAd9vr_rtZRsfDgxPQlWVtq55xvFbEKvEDvpMRIs7AExjXUvE