Embracing your Identity in Christ.

Embracing your Identity in Christ.

“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun”

2 Corinthians 5:17

Every week we fill our garbage bins with our rubbish. We put our food scraps, dirty nappies, and empty shampoo bottles in the bin. Once a week, a garbage truck comes to our house and puts our old junk into a truck and takes it away. When we bring our bin in, it is empty, clean and ready to fill up again. Its like that with our lives. Until we know Christ and are conformed to his image and secure in our identity in him, we are like a garbage bin, full of old food scraps. When we are transformed by Christ, we are made new and we are ready for a new purpose.

When Jesus died on the cross, he bridged the gap between us and God and made a way for us to connect with God. When we come to know God as our saviour, he forgives us of our past, and makes us holy, pure and righteous. Our old identity is gone, and we inherit a new identity as a Child of God, a new creation, the old has gone and the new has come.

It all starts with this:

God delights in you,

he made you for a purpose,

and he loves you.

“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” Ephesians 2:10

Part of our journey to discovering our identity in Christ is accepting God’s love for us, and for us to learn and accept ourselves the way he made us.

He made us all with such unique and individual talents, gifts, abilities and skills, and he has a plan for you to use those things so you can achieve the purpose he has for your life.

When we are secure in who we are, established in our identity in Christ and confident in who God is to us, we can find the unique pathway that God has for us.

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well” Psalm 139:13-14

Why do we need to know who we are in Christ?

Because it helps us embrace who we are as children of God and adopt the new identity God has given to us. When we adopt this new identity, we lay a firm foundation, so that we can grow and mature.

The key to embracing who you are as a child of God is seeing yourself the way that God sees you. All throughout God's word we read about what God says about us.

Here is a small list of Identity Statements found is God's word:

You are a child of God (1 John 2:3)

You are accepted (Eph 1:6)

You are God’s handiwork (Eph 2:10)

You are loved (John 15:9)

You are valuable to God (Matt 6:26)

You are blessed (Eph 1:3)

You are a masterpiece (Eph 2:10)

You are righteous (2 Cor 5:21)

We need to know who we are as children of God, because we live in a world where everything is constantly changing. People's opinions of us change, our world leaders change, our bodies change, our life is always changing. If we don't know who we are in Christ we will get tossed around like a boat in a storm without an anchor.

Our Identity in Christ is like an anchor, it holds us firm and steady, regardless of what is going on around us or what we are facing.

When we come to Christ, we all have a past. We all need forgiveness. We need God's grace. It is easy to see ourselves as the mistakes we have made and even put labels on ourselves. One of the ways we can embrace our new identity in Christ is to renew our mind with God's word. I think it is the most important and effective way to see embrace our Identity in Christ.

The way that I renew my mind with God's truth for me, is by memorizing God's promises for me first thing in the morning. I have achieved this by writing a list of Identity Statements on a piece of paper and putting them up in my bedroom and on my bathroom mirror. Every morning when I wake up, the list of what God says about me is the first thing I see. When I am getting ready in the morning, I read through the list of Identity statements on my bathroom mirror and it sets me on the right course for the day.

Pick 5 Identity Statements that are important to you, and set a time in the day that you memorise them. As you think about them and meditate on them, you will become secure and sure of who you are as a child of God.

This action step will help you establish your identity as a Child of God and see yourself the way God sees you.