Just Who Do You Think You Are?
Identity, as a topic, comes up often in today’s discussions of personal and spiritual formation. Knowing who you are and from there discerning directions in life serve as foundation stones on which to build.
However, discerning your true identity can be more difficult than it might first appear. Here’s a cute story for illustration.
Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979-1990, was the longest-serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century. While she was in office Mrs. Thatcher visited a home for seniors, the kind of place often referred to as an “old folks’ home.”
As she made the rounds shaking hands, she came to one older lady who seemed to be suffering from dementia. She gave no indication that she had any idea that she was shaking hands with the Prime Minister. Mrs. Thatcher asked the woman:
“Do you know who I am?”
The dear lady replied, “No dear, but if you really want to know you can ask the nurse. She usually knows.”
We don’t have a nurse to set us strait, we have someone much better: The one who made us and who called us his own. He knows you to the bottom and yet remains. But we still forget sometimes who we are. It’s good to run down identifiers that are attached to your soul and give you direction.
One writer I came across had this to say about his view of identity for a believer.
Who am I? I belong to Jesus Christ. Who are you? You belong to Jesus Christ. By God’s grace, he lives his risen life in us. We are therefore Christ-followers. By grace, God has adopted us as his children, so that by that same grace we are heirs of his kingdom. Everything we have, do, and accomplish apart from Jesus’ life in us is inconsequential to our existence—Jesus is our all in all. Our identity is in Christ. Before and above anything else that might identify us, we belong to Jesus.
The problems we usually get into can be sourced in believing lies about who we are and how we can be fulfilled. Lies about how our worst days in the past define who we are and prescribe where we will end up. God says we carry a new name, his name.
While in a sermon series in Genesis, our pastor talked about Abram becoming Abraham. He used this vignette to highlight both God’s ongoing work in every believer’s life as well as how we are not defined by our worst moments or seasons. Identity is about Now and Next.
Now, we stand as a forgiven child of God, welcomed into his presence and disciplined, guided, and encouraged by that status we enjoy. Truly this changes everything. While we had all been one thing, dead to God, Now we are alive in him! Remember Ephesians 2:4?
But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our wrongdoings, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
“But God” changed everything. You are alive. You are his. Your status is secure, forever. That’s your Now.
Next squints to the future as each one carries his/her new identity toward and into each challenge and opportunity. It’s not as though we are made new then left to our own devices to figure out life. God is in the midst of that, as well.
Paul, again in another letter to a group of new believers in Philippi, says,
I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day Christ Jesus returns.
That’s their Next. And it is also yours. God hasn’t changed plans; the way of faith is the same, now as then, and so is your Next.
Another writer puts this idea of living out our true identity this way,
What a supreme blessing and priceless privilege it is to be redeemed and released from the rat race of worrying about how self-important we assume we are. Some people sit around and worry about what their legacy will be. When we are in Christ, we don’t have to give a second thought to our legacy, because most important of all, we are in Christ forever. Jesus has a legacy, and by grace we have been given that same legacy. Our legacy is the dynamic reality of life in Christ, now and forever.
So…"Just who do you think you are?”
Perhaps you thought you’d be in one level of maturity, but you find yourself in another. Maybe you expected to be further along, or you find yourself still holding onto something that should be behind you. The labels don’t line up. It doesn’t feel like it “matches.”
But who you really are…in your God-given identity…remains steady. There is a great line in Isaiah 43 that is deeply personal, to Israel, and by extension, you each of us.
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
Your circumstances may take you on rough roads that scare the the pudding out of the best of us, but who you are in Christ steadies each one and keeps you on the road, relentlessly following. Who you think you are sets your path for who you are becoming. Settle in your mind and heart who and whose you are.
So…“Just who do you think you are?”
Music for the week:
jokesjokesjokes
A salesman from a mortgage refinance company cold-called a lady at home.
Salesman: "Do you have a second mortgage on your home?"
Lady: "No."
Salesman: "Would you like to consolidate all your debts?"
Lady: "I really don't have any."
Salesman: "How about freeing up cash for home improvements?"
Lady: "I don't need any. I just recently had some done and paid cash."
... brief pause...
Salesman: "Are you looking for a husband?"
****************
When my three-year-old son opened the birthday gift from his grandmother, he discovered a wind-up monkey that plays drums.
He squealed with delight.
I was not so pleased.
I turned to Mom and said, "I'm surprised at you. Don't you remember how we used to drive you crazy with that?"
Mom smiled and then replied, "Oh, I remember, I so remember."