Who You Are In Christ

     In order to know who we are, in order to have self-awareness and true self knowledge, we must have meaningful engagement with our environment. Our environment reflects to us not only our purposes as part of God’s creation, but also our progress as evolving entities in the process of becoming something more. Our environment consists mainly of the homes we live in, the places we work at, the people we meet and the relationships we allow into our lives. More than this, and perhaps more significantly, our environment is also mental, emotional, biological, spiritual and circumstantial.

 

     We are used to people asking us, ‘What do you do for a living?’ but how would you answer this question in one sentence: ‘Who are you?’ You might be tempted to say the son of this person or the mother of that person or the boss of this person. Or you might describe some characteristic about you, ‘I am a contented person’ or ‘a happy person’ or ‘a broken person’ or ‘an ambitious person’. All these descriptions about you might be true and accurate but when it comes to your identity in Christ Jesus, these descriptions become insufficient because of who He is and what that means for you, as a believer.

 

     The Lord Jesus Christ demonstrated the glory of God in all that He did. The manifestation of God’s power, nature and presence was who He was on Earth and who He is now in heaven. The glory of God seen in His holiness, justice, love and dominion inhabited this Earth in the form of a man. He did not just demonstrate the fruits of the Holy Spirit but He Himself is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The best part of it is that He said ‘My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.’ (John 10:10)

 

     The scriptures tell us, ‘Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.’ (2 Corinthians 5:17)  What this means is that, when we actively engage our faith in our daily lives with the knowledge that we are children of a living God who has called and accepted us exactly as we are and substituted our sinful nature for His holy nature, not only do we find ourselves acting in new ways and doing things with a new sense of identity, the things that are part of our ‘old nature’ are not as hard to correct. We ‘put off the old self with his practices.’ (Colossians 3:9)  Our selfish desires, our judgments, our habits, our opinions, our temperaments, our whole outlook begins to shift.

 

     We do not become ‘our best selves’. In Christ, we become our true selves. Our interaction and relationship with Christ Jesus, with God's Word and with His Spirit re-creates us as a whole new person. It is not something we do out of our own selfish or willful power but something God does entirely by His Spirit when we choose Him and choose to follow Him. We begin to meet our true selves, apart from our cultural, social, environmental demands, attachments, responsibilities and identities, we get to see who we really are from His point of view, we ‘put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness’ (Ephesians 4:24)

 

     We have a sinful nature, prone to making mistakes, and of course, we do not automatically become perfected sinless beings. What happens is, the joy of our friendship and personal relationship with God makes us hate our sin more and more as we are being transformed into His likeness and sanctified by His Spirit. We begin to have the heart of God for ourselves and for others and we being to practice daily repentance and forgiveness. We become free from the bondage to our sinful nature and become transformed, day to day, into the likeness of God.  Our identity as children of God becomes tangible, visible and undeniable. 

 

     In Christ, and through our active faith in Him, we become 'the righteousness of God',  and God see's us as righteous.  In Christ, we are 'a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that we may declare the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light.' (1 Peter 2:9)

 

‘He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.’   (Colossians 1:13 ) 

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     May God give us strength to take hold of all His promises in Christ and to help us 'work out our salvation with fear and trembling' (Philippians 2:12)  in order to manifest His perfect will for and through our lives.  May He give us strength to boldly and daily own our identity in our Lord Christ Jesus.

                                                                                     

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