Who am I?
Who am I?
“Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and we are His, we are His people, the sheep of his pasture”
Psalm 100:3
I met someone new a few weeks ago and they asked me a few questions to get to know me.
They asked me questions like, where did you grow up, what do you do for work, are you married, how old are you, do you have any children? The last question they asked me, was about my family. They asked who do I belong to. Most times if we know who someones family of origin is, we can work out where they belong. Our families we grow up with are an important part of our lives. Our last name associates us with our family. Sometimes we have similar features, traits or gifts to our families of origin.
As we grow up, we learn certain things from our families that teach us how to live. These skills are important as we become adults. My husband and I are teaching our son the importance of being kind to others, being generous and loving. These are key traits we want him to have as he grows up.
Just like we learn certain things from our families, we need to learn who we are from our Heavenly Father. We belong to him, we are his handiwork, his masterpiece, his beloved. All through the Scriptures, it is clear that God loves us and made us unique, custom made for his purpose.
When we become Christians, we take on a “new family name” as a child of God and with that comes a long list of who we are in Christ. As we mature in our faith in Christ, it is important for us to know who we belong to and who we are.
Maybe you didn’t grow up in a loving family. Maybe you didn’t know your birth mother or father. Maybe you haven’t know the acceptance of a family. Maybe you grew up in a broken family situation.
God knows our story. He knows all the heartache, all the rejection, and all the pain you have felt.
It is essential for us to know who our Heavenly Father is. It gives us a foundation, which we can build our security, confidence and faith upon.
I believe it’s an important part of our Christian faith for us to know who we are.
So how do you know who you are in Christ?
The Bible gives us a long list of statements about how God sees us.
We have to renew our mind with the Identity statements that God gives us. The way that other people have described us or even sometimes how we see ourselves, needs to line up with God’s word.
I heard a story of a man who wanted to quit smoking cigarettes. He tried everything, and nothing worked. He had become a Christian and wanted to give up the things in his life that didn’t fit his identity in Christ. One day he was praying and felt the Holy Spirit show him that he needed to see himself the way God sees him. Every morning he got up and would say to himself, “I am a non-smoker”. All throughout the day, even while he was having a smoke, he would say, “I am a non-smoker”. He kept saying that to upgrade his identity and as he did, he lost the craving for cigarettes and gave them up for good.
The key in breaking old habits and mindsets is to upgrade our identity to exactly how God sees us. As we speak what God says about us, it teaches our mind to think about ourselves differently, and when we do this, we can live in the life that God has planned for us as healthy, strong, matured Christians.
You can start today by meditating on the Identity Statements that are found in the Bible.
Here is a list of the ones that I memorize every day.
Deeply loved (Ephesians 3:17)
Forgiven (Acts 13:38)
Healed (1 Peter 2:24)
Uniquely gifted (1 Peter 4;10)
Chosen (1 Peter 2:9)
Accepted (Ephesians 1:6)
God's Masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10)
I encourage you to start the habit of meditating on these Scriptures and allowing them to transform you, as you embrace you Identity in Christ and get a full understanding of who you are as a child of God.