I’ve always been kind of annoyed when people bring up the whole “identity in Christ” topic because most of the time it sounds more like a Christian band-aid than Biblical truth. You hear things like “you’re a son/daughter of The King!” or “You’re a princess in God’s eyes!”
Reminds me of a Disney movie.
Here at Breaking Chains, we’re working with girls who have been abused, sold, trafficked, etc. They’ve grown up hearing and believing lies that they don’t matter, that nobody really loves them, and that no one could ever care about them- much less love them like a good father would. They’ve never had the love and protection that a good father offers. So it makes sense that we would spend so much time on the topic of them being Princesses of God, or en Espanol, Princesas de Dios.
The thing is, I know it’s true. There’s no way you can look into one of these girls’ eyes and say “Oh no, you’re not a daughter of God. He doesn’t care about you.” That’s a lie from the pit of hell. So why then can we say the truth to little girls in Nicaragua but we get uncomfortable when it’s said to or about us? Why does it sound so cheesy and unbelievable? Why don’t we embrace the cheesy-ness?
The World Race is all about living into your identity in Christ. It doesn’t really annoy me that much any more to talk about it, but it used to. I thought I had it down. Then I came on the World Race and somehow it keeps getting brought up. Someone always smacks me in the face with Romans 8:
“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs- heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.”
If that doesn’t take your breath away no matter where you are in your walk with God, you need to read it a few more times. If you’re adopted, you get taken into a new family. You take on a new name. You go from being alone and unloved to having a home and people who love you. There’s a lot of change that comes when you’re adopted. We are rescued from being slaves to our flesh and the law of death, set free by the Spirit in Christ Jesus, and adopted as sons and daughters of God.
We’ve been challenging each other in our team to really soak in this passage this past week. We’re encouraging each other- and I now encourage and challenge you- to take a long hard look at this and think about what it means that we are adopted by God, children of God, and heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.
I know I’m going to get some eye rolling at this, but let go of your inhibitions, let down the walls around your heart, and let this sink in: You are a child of God.
