“Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not!“-Romans 6:1&2a NLT. However, it does mean that we are released from the worldly pressures to perform and achieve perfection. Scripture tells us we are to strive to be godly and to embrace the righteousness God calls us to, but God doesn’t expect us to arrive there perfectly on our own. This is why He sent Christ to earth-to save us from the sinful nature that separates us from Him.
Because of this truth, I am learning to embrace who I am here and now: my gifts, talents, strengths, weaknesses and shortcomings. Identifying these things not only provides understanding of myself, but also puts me in a place where I can fully come before the Lord JUST as I am. From here, I can seek Him and ask Him to refine the areas of my life that are not pleasing to Him, the parts that are yet to bare the fruits of the Spirit. As I embrace His correction and refinement, I find that my identity is changing-He is molding and shaping the “new me” into something more beautiful and Christ-like than the “old me” could ever be. Although my flesh is sometimes resistant to this life-long process, I know that the Lord will be faithful to see it through to completion (Philip. 1:6).
For the better part of the last year, the Lord has been teaching me a great deal about identity. He began by simply helping me to understand who I am in Christ. For example:
“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made…”-Psalm 139:14 NIV
“Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name, you are mine.”-Isaiah 43:1 NLT
“I no longer call you servants because a master does not confide in his servants. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me.”-John 15:15 NLT
More recently, understanding my identity has evolved into embracing the identity I have right now, at this very moment. Identity by definition is the fact of being who or what a person or thing is. In the last 10 months, I have even found myself in moments like Paul when he says “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate, I do.”-Romans 7:15 NIV
Although I never intentionally say or do things to hurt my teammates, there are moments when such things take place. In moments like these, the Lord reminds me of yet another aspect my identity in Him: that I am forever embraced by His grace and “…though my sins are as scarlet, I (the Lord) will make them white as snow…”-Isaiah 1:18 NLT
