If you read my introductory post, you may be confused as to why I am introducing myself… again. God has been teaching me a lot the past several weeks about my true identity… and it’s wrecking me in ways I never expected. My identity – your identity – is a lot more than what appears on the surface and is so much more than you think.
You may have noticed in your conversations with friends and small talk with strangers – we effortlessly and without thinking define ourselves by our exterior circumstances: I am from this place, I live here, I do this kind of job, I engage in these activities, I do these things for fun, I am related to these people, etc. But God is teaching me that we are so much more than that. I am so much more than that. Not because of what I’ve done or can do, but because of what He did.
I am not the things I do. And the things I do do not change who I am.
My whole life for as long as I can remember, I have lived under the influence of two lies that have become strongholds for me:
1. I am a sinner. That is who I am. I will never be free from my sinful actions and patterns, so I will always be condemned as a sinner.
2. God is only pleased with me if I am walking a straight and narrow balance beam of perfection, and if I falter or fall, He is disappointed in me and turns away from me until I can pull myself back on the balance beam of perfection and get back in line with what He expects from me.
Because I have believed about myself: “I can never be free from my sins” and “God doesn’t want me if I’m not perfect,” everything in my life has been tinted with that lens. That’s how I have viewed myself and defined my worth. It is how I have defined the worth and value of other people in my life, destroying relationships I am so grieved to realize the damage came from my belief of the lies of the Enemy. It has kept me from true intimacy with my Heavenly Father, because I assumed He didn’t want me unless I fixed myself up, and since perfection and freedom from sin were unattainable in my mind, I would never be wanted or have an intimate relationship with Him.
God is redeeming this in ways that have blown me away.
It started at Winter Conference, where I learned that God delights in me, and is well-pleased with me. How can that be if I’m nothing more than a broken prideful sinner who can’t be what He wants me to be? That’s not for me. That’s not true for me. It can’t be. Lies, lies, lies. Psalm 147:11 tells us that God delights in those who put their faith in His unfailing love. I trusted that God loved me, but I didn’t think He liked me or was pleased with me.
Then, at church we started a series on freedom in Jesus, something I was desperate to have and experience. Two Sundays in a row, God wrecked me with this Truth:
You are not what you do. You are not who the world or your circumstances say you are. You are MINE. I have redeemed you and you are free from all condemnation. Jesus’ blood has covered you completely and your past, present, and future sins are hidden from me. I look at you and I delight in you. I am so well-pleased with you. I love you and I mean that. The things you do do not change who I say you are. You are holy and righteous because of what my Son did for you on the cross. Because you have accepted Him as your Savior and Lord, you are now a part of my family, my flock, and nothing you do can change that fact or change the way I feel about you. This is your true identity. It is sealed with the blood of Christ.
Hoooolyyyyy frick. That’s… wow. MAN. Guys this is so much. This changes EVERYTHING. Wow.
And God didn’t stop there. No, He is so good and faithful and is still pursuing me.
Through conversation with my mentor, I learned this incredible Truth that hit me out of nowhere and literally knocked the wind out of me: I am not my pride.
I realized in middle school that I struggled with pride. I’ve known it for years, and this whole time, when I confessed, “I have a spirit of pride,” what I really meant and believed was, “the spirit inside of me, the soul that God breathed into me, is pride; that is who and what I am, and I cannot be free of it because it IS me.”
THAT IS A LIE AND I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW IT. Wow, I’ve been enslaved to this monster for half of my life because I did not know my true identity in Jesus and I never knew that the spirit of pride within me was not the spirit God gave me. I didn’t know that in the company of believers, I could cry out to my Father God and confess that I have a spirit of pride within me and then CAST IT OUT in Jesus’ Name. I thought it was who I am and thought that removing pride would remove me, my identity, who I am. No no no no no no no no no. That is not who I am, and freedom from pride is mine in Jesus’ Name! Hallelujah!!!!
Okay and THEN God in all His goodness and delight didn’t stop there. He brought me to Women’s Conference where I learned:
1. God cannot be disappointed in us because disappointment is tied to surprise (expecting something different from someone or something) – an emotion God cannot experience because He is omniscient (all-knowing).
2. We are called to put to death the old self and put on the new, but this is NOT something we do alone: it must be empowered by the Holy Spirit, therefore we can’t and are not expected to do it alone. This process also happens synchronously – as we renew our minds and fix our eyes on Jesus, old habits are removed and we are renewed as the Holy Spirit creates in us the new person.
3. Spiritual formation is a lifelong process, in partnership with us, in which God forms us into the image of His Son. Our journey of transformation and being made new is not instantaneous when we accept Christ; it is a lifelong process that will only be complete when we join God in Heaven.
4. Each and every human being on this earth is made in the image of God, and this gives them immediate and undeniable worth and value. Each person has equal and unique worth and value. Dying to self and denying ourselves does not mean that we remove or deny the personality, gifts, and talents that God gave us. It is a process of becoming the fullness of the person God created us to be without the things we learned from the world and the lies we cling to.
… and I learned all of that yesterday. God has not stopped teaching me and renewing my mind since the catalyst of Winter Conference, and I know He is faithful to keep working because I am confident in this: that He who began a good work in me will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6).
I am confident that this is just the beginning – no – the continuation of the work He started when I first put my trust in Him. I have wandered far and wide from these Truths in those many years, but I know now that none of that changed who I am, my true identity.
WOW.
Thank you, Jesus! To God be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
