The Answer to Every Christian’s Identity Struggle

As believers in Jesus Christ it is easy to lose our bearings when we forget who we are. This is every Christian’s identity crisis. The answer is for us to recognize the false identities that have robbed us of our joy, peace, contentment, and security and replace them with what is already true of us because of being united with Christ by faith.

For the past year the Holy Spirit has been renewing my mind and refreshing my soul by directing my focus to portions of the Word of God that emphasize who I am in Christ.

The portion where my heart dwelt this morning is the first half of the book of Ephesians. The first three chapters of the apostle’s great theological treatise are filled with numerous realities that we need to consistently claim as already belonging to us. Along with me, reflect on these 42 truths:

1. I am a saint, a set-apart-one, set apart by God for God (1:1).
2. I am a child of God. God is my father (1:2)
3. I am a servant of God. Jesus is my Lord (1:2).
4. I am a recipient of every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (1:3).
5. I am chosen by God in Christ (1:4).
6. I am predestined (1:5).
7. I am adopted as a son (1:5).
8. I am a recipient of God’s kindness (1:5).
9. I am an object of God’s grace (1:6).
10. I am in union with the Beloved One, Jesus (1:6).
11. I am redeemed through His blood (1:7).
12. I am forgiven of my sin (1:7).
13. I am a knower of God’s mystery, the mystery of His will in Christ (1:9).   Continue at Paul Tautges

The Answer to Every Christian’s Identity Crisis

As believers in Jesus Christ it is easy to lose our bearings when we forget who we are. This is every Christian’s identity crisis. The answer is for us to recognize the false identities that have robbed us of our joy, peace, contentment, and security and replace them with what is already true of us because of being united with Christ by faith.

For the past year the Holy Spirit has been renewing my mind and refreshing my soul by directing my focus to portions of the Word of God that emphasize who I am in Christ.

The portion where my heart dwelt this morning is the first half of the book of Ephesians. 

The first three chapters of the apostle’s great theological treatise are filled with numerous realities that we need to consistently claim as already belonging to us. Along with me, reflect on these 42 truths:

1. I am a saint, a set-apart-one, set apart by God for God (1:1).
2. I am a child of God. God is my father (1:2)
3. I am a servant of God. Jesus is my Lord (1:2).
4. I am a recipient of every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (1:3).
5. I am chosen by God in Christ (1:4).
6. I am predestined (1:5).
7. I am adopted as a son (1:5).    Continue at Paul Tautges

How Could I Sin?

Father, how could I sin?

Having seen your hatred for sin and your love for righteousness, how could I sin?

I have seen the fullness of your just anger borne by Christ for me. How could I be speak angrily to others?

I have seen your patience with me through decades of rebellion. How could I be impatient with others?

I have seen how you work the evil of others for good. How could I be bitter?

I have seen your seeking, adopting, pursuing, and wooing love. How could I turn a blind eye to those seeking love from me?

I have seen your mercy, compassion, and willingness to condescend to help me. How could I stand over others and judge?

I have seen Jesus, the King of Creation, receiving insults and mocking. How could I live for the approval of other people?

I have seen Jesus drinking a cup of wrath from your hand when all he deserved was worship from our mouths. How could I covet something better than what I’ve been given?

I have seen my dying Saviour, and in that moment, I saw what I deserved. How could I complain against your providence in my life?

I have seen the agony of your Son. How could I delight in what caused it?   Continue at Julian Freeman

In Christ I'm Not a Sinner

I'm learning that the more I see of the gospel, the more I see how little I see it. For every inch gained in gospel understanding, I gain a foot in seeing how little I grasp it. I peer over the ledge of grace and see a new hundred-foot drop, which enables me to see also that the cliff extends another mile beyond that.

There is an entire psychological substructure that, due to the Fall, is a near-constant emission of relational leveraging, fear-stuffing, nervousness, score-keeping, neurotic controlling, anxiety-festering silliness that is not something I say or even think so much as something I breathe. You can smell this on people, though some of us are good at hiding it. And I'm seeing more and more, bit by bit, that if you trace this fountain of scurrying haste, in all its various manifestations, down to the root, you don't find childhood difficulties or a Myers-Briggs diagnosis or Freudian impulses. You find gospel deficit. All the worry and dysfunction and resentment is the natural fruit of living in a mental universe of Law. The gospel really is what brings rest, wholeness, flourishing, shalom---that existential calm that for brief, gospel-sane moments settles over you and lets you see for a moment that in Christ you truly are invincible. The verdict really is in; nothing can touch you.

From another angle: Living by law, which we all believe we're not really doing (those silly Galatians!) is deep and subtle and pervasive. More pervasive than the occasional moments of self-conscious works-righteousness would indicate. Those moments of self-knowledge are indeed gifts of grace and not to be ignored. But they are only the visible tip of an invisible iceberg. They are surface symptoms. Law-ish-ness (in Gal 3:10 Paul uses the phrase, literally, "those who are of works of law") is by its very nature undetectable because it's natural, not unnatural, to us. Feels normal.   Continue at Dane Ortlund

Who I Am In Christ

Here is a great reminder to encourage us and spur us on our walk with Christ, and to help overcome our gospel amnesia:

• Matthew 4:19; Mark 1:17—I am a fisher of men.
• Matthew 5:13—I am the salt of the earth.
• Matthew 5:14—I am the light of the world.
• Matthew 28:19; Luke 14:27; John 8:31; 13:35; 15:8; Acts 6:1, 7; 11:25-26, 29; 14:20-22; 16:1—I am a disciple of Christ.
• Luke 24:48; Acts 1:8—I am Christ’s witness.
• John 3:16-18; 10:28-29; 17:3; Romans 5:21; 6:23; 1 John 5:11—I have eternal life in Christ.
• John 8:32, 36—I am set free from sin in Christ.
• John 10:10—I have abundant life in Christ.
• John 14:26; 16:13—I have been taught all things by the Holy Spirit.
• John 14:27; 16:33—I have peace in Christ.
• John 15:3—I am clean in Christ.
• John 15:4, 5, 8, 16; Romans 7:4—I bear much lasting fruit in Christ.
• John 15:5—I am a branch abiding in Christ the Vine.
• John 15:11—My joy is complete in Christ.
• John 16:33—I have overcome the world in Christ.
• John 17:16—I am not of this world.   Continue Reading...
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