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Your Identity in Christ: How God Sees You

Brittany Yesudasan

Our culture is very interested in the journey of discovering individual identity. Personality tests, dream assessments, even Buzzfeed quizzes are available everywhere you look. It seems similar everyone is searching for something to tell them who they are, where they vest and how they relate to the world.

The Bible says that all men and women are created in God's prototype. Humankind was created to reflect some of God's attributes. You can await for your identity anywhere, but followers of Jesus are chosen to find their identity in Him.

Where Do You Find Your Identity?

While our globe encourages you to expect within yourself for your identity, your natural tendency is to search for your identity in external things.

I of the showtime places that y'all tin can exist tempted to look to is your career. Spending your fourth dimension and energy pursuing your career tin crusade you to feel like it is a defining characteristic of who you are. After all, a chore that y'all are dedicated to is probable to accept up about of your time and attending.

Jobs and careers are closely connected to other places where you can search for your identity, such as fiscal success and status. Simply it doesn't stop at that place. Nosotros also ask our human relationship statuses, appearance, grades, and reputation to provide a sense of identity.

Any or all of these may feel similar solid foundations, but none of them are non permanent. Any of them could modify without warning. If y'all base your identity on things similar success, wealth, ability, physical advent, and and so on,  yous are setting yourself up for  great disappointment. A sudden task loss could exit you questioning your choices in life. Ane piece of gossip aimed your manner could destroy your reputation, fifty-fifty if it is untrue. Your appearance will alter as you get older.

God, however, is unchanging. He is reliable. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. If you lot find your identity in Him, you volition never ultimately exist permit downwardly because He has proven time and fourth dimension once more to exist trustworthy.

It is important, as you define your identity, that God non be simply an aspect of who you are, like "I am a Christian," or "I am religious," or "I am spiritual".  Understanding your identity in God starts with understanding who He is, what He says about Himself, and what He says about you. Your identity tin can be defined by who God is making you to be in His image.

How God Sees His Children

To exist able to understand your identity every bit a follower of Christ, you demand to sympathize how He sees yous. It's tempting to build your identity on what yous achieve, just this is not a stable foundation.

Your true identity is ultimately based on what God has done for yous. In the Bible, God tells us often about how He views His people. Let'due south take a wait at what He says virtually you, if you lot received Him every bit your Lord and Savior. (Learn how to have a personal relationship with God and ask Him to exist your Lord and Savior.)

You Are Loved

In Christ, you are loved. You were created with a purpose. Y'all are not just a convenient carbon copy of someone else. You were created uniquely and with intention. God lovingly designed every detail of your person. Can you imagine the beloved involved with that intricate blueprint?

You Are Chosen

In Christ, you are not only loved merely chosen. God sent His own Son to world to die in your place and then that you could be included in His family unit.

God was non obligated to choose you based on your performance or credentials. He chose to conduct out an intricate plan that involved the death of His ain perfect Son, which allowed you the opportunity to be a child of God.

You lot are no mistake. You are chosen and wanted.

You Are Forgiven

In order to be counted a child of the perfect Father, you had to be free of sin — that is, you had to be perfect with regard to doing correct and non doing incorrect. That is a tall order considering no one but Jesus was or is perfect and no one tin can attain perfection by their own effort.

However, considering Jesus who was without sin died the death you lot should have on the cross, you can be forgiven of sin. What y'all've washed wrong is not counted against you, and all that Christ did correct is counted for yous. This forgiveness allows yous to exist considered a child of God.

Therefore, in God's eyes, if you lot have accustomed what Jesus did for yous, you lot are completely forgiven. From His perspective, yous are without sin. It's not that you won't sin, but when He looks at you lot, He calls y'all forgiven. That is something on which you lot can build your identity.

You Are Redeemed

What does your forgiveness mean? Y'all are redeemed — that is, Christ's sacrifice has bought y'all back from the forces of sin and evil that once owned and controlled you lot and made y'all His.

When God looks at you, He does not meet a old sinner. He does not see you in light of who you lot once were. He sees you as redeemed: a new cosmos that has been made whole.

You do not have to define yourself in light of your by mistakes. God does not do that. Yous can walk in the identity of someone who is made new in Christ.

You lot Are Adopted

What does it mean to be considered a child of God? It means that you accept been adopted into His family unit. You are considered a legitimate child of the God of the universe, having all the rights and standing of Jesus His Son.

God sees yous every bit a cherished child who bears His name. Just every bit earthly adoption is a legally binding process that names you a permanent function of a family, heavenly adoption is merely as permanent and binding. You lot are His kid, and He will never take that away.

What the Bible Says About Identity in Christ

You lot don't accept to take anyone's give-and-take for it. Actually, God wants you to discover out for yourself by reading His Word. It is and then of import that you go to the Bible to find out how He feels about you. Your identity should never exist based on a hope or a guess. God gave us His Word, the Bible, so y'all can know Him and know who He is making you to exist in Him.

"You lot are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household." (Ephesians two:19, New International Version)

We are members of His household, not strangers. If you follow Christ, you belong in God'south household and with His people.

In this passage, Paul is encouraging followers of Christ to retrieve that they are all office of i family unit. They are to be unified with each other.  This tin can merely happen if you sympathize that you lot are a legitimate kid of God. You are part of His family.

"God is able to anoint you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that yous demand, you lot volition abound in every good work." (2 Corinthians 9:8, NIV)

As a child of God, yous are blest and provided for. God is able to provide you with everything you demand in Christ. He is the Possessor of everything and the Giver of all good things.

"See what great love the Male parent has lavished on us, that nosotros should be chosen children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know united states of america is that it did not know Him." (1 John 3:one, NIV)

In Christ, you are loved. Your identity is a child of God. This Bible verse comes from a chapter that warns confronting the temptation to devious from God into sin. You tin can resist sin by remembering that God has the best for His children. He offers you lot more than the world ever could. Y'all are complete in His beloved.

"The LORD your God is with y'all, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take nifty delight in you lot; in His love He volition no longer rebuke you, simply will rejoice over yous with singing." (Zephaniah 3:17, NIV)

Jesus delights in yous. You are not just accepted or put upward with. You are welcomed into His family with delight.

When correction comes, it lasts for a short time because the goal is for it to aid you reverberate God'due south holy graphic symbol more accurately. He delights in y'all so much that He is making you lot more similar Himself twenty-four hour period past mean solar day.

"God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might get the righteousness of God." (2 Corinthians 5:21, NIV)

You lot are God's righteousness. You lot are His goodness and rightness considering of what Christ did on the cantankerous. This was given to you, and you are called righteous by the Lord of the universe.

You can live in light of the righteousness you were given. It not just allows you to arroyo God with confidence, but it allows y'all to be an ambassador to others effectually you lot. Because your righteousness is non earned only freely given through faith in Jesus, y'all can share this souvenir with others and invite them to be God's righteousness too.

"Deport with each other and forgive one another if whatever of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you." (Colossians 3:13, NIV)

You are forgiven. If you are a follower of Christ, you take become God's child considering the Lord forgave y'all for the sin you committed against Him.

Equally someone who is forgiven, you can at present freely forgive others. God extended grace — that is, undeserved favor — to y'all. You can extend that grace to others around you lot.

"We are God'southward handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." (Ephesians 2:ten, NIV)

Yous were created with a purpose. God had specific intentions for your life when He brought you into the world. First and foremost, your purpose is to know Him and glorify Him. Then you tin can engage in other good works that will bring God celebrity and grow your own religion.

Yous were saved from great sin. Now, as a child of God, you can walk with God and do great good through His piece of work in you lot.

"If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The erstwhile has gone, the new is here!" (ii Corinthians 5:17, NIV)

In Christ, you are a new creation. God has made you lot new. The old things that used to ascertain you have been taken away. God used to identify you as an enemy, simply now he knows you equally a child. Yous who were a sinner are now righteous.

Y'all are new because through Jesus your sin has been paid for. You take been restored in correct standing before God.

"You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that y'all may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful lite." (1 Peter 2:nine, NIV)

You are special to God. You lot are called past Him. This verse comes from a passage that talks about how Christ was rejected by many. But by faith in Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit, if you trust in Jesus, y'all are part of His holy, called people.

Yous can rid yourself of things that are function of the old y'all, office of the darkness, such as deceit, hypocrisy, green-eyed, and slander because you have been brought into wonderful light.

Obstacles to Believing in Your Identity

Even if y'all know all these things about where a follower of Christ finds their identity, there can often be obstacles continuing in the way of believing who you are in Christ. Other sources of identity often stand in the way, such every bit career, appearance or money. Only there are other things that can distract you too.

By Sin

Anybody has made mistakes. Everyone has sinned. If you take Christ, God forgives you of these things.

Psalm 103:12 (NIV) says, "Equally far every bit the due east is from the west, then far has He removed our transgressions from u.s.a.." Transgression is another word for sin or mistakes. God removes your sin from you. You will nevertheless often remember your sins, and those memories can make you feel unworthy, keepings y'all from accepting your true identity.

Outside Letters or Experiences

You might not just recall what you accept done; you may also remember what people have done to you. Maybe you were treated poorly or neglected. Maybe people told you negative things most yourself.

The world is broken by sin. There are people who take experienced unspeakable injustice. From gossip to exact and physical abuse, outside messages are trying to shape your identity every solar day. Those outside messages tin pb you to believe that you lot are unworthy of what the Bible says is true of you in Christ.

False Beliefs

As you follow Jesus, you volition seek to know Him more than. You can do this through time in the Word, through prayer, through talking with friends or a mentor and through gathering together with other believers in worship.

Every bit your understanding of God grows, you may recognize flawed beliefs that you held before that do not line up with what you are hearing and learning about your identity at present.

Perhaps you lot grew up learning that you can lose your salvation. Peradventure y'all thought that in that location were certain behaviors or sins that disqualify y'all from receiving Christ'south salvation. At that place are many false behavior out there that seem right but really take away from who God is and what He says. It can exist confusing to work through these differences.

How Can You Respond?

These obstacles are difficult to navigate. It's easy to believe that these things are legitimate barriers to following Jesus. But by the ability of the Holy Spirit, you tin overcome these obstacles and alive fully in the identity that you were given in Jesus.

Apologize

The give-and-take "repent" ways that you agree with God. And then the start thing yous can do to cover your identity is to hold with Him that yous are believing things that are no longer true of you.

Bring the things you are struggling with to Him. Acknowledge that they are hard for you lot to overcome. Confess that you believe Him when He says that they are no longer true of you.

Grieve

Many places in scripture encourage believers of Jesus to mourn over their sin. Although your sin no longer defines your identity, y'all do still experience its effects in your life. Therefore, it is legitimate and even important to grieve the sin that keeps you lot from truly believing the things Jesus says.

Y'all can also grieve the sins that were committed against you lot and all that those wounds cost yous. Yous tin can grieve the effect that it had on your relationship with the Lord.

Paul was one of the leaders of the early church who helped write the Bible's New Testament. In a letter to one church, which nosotros now know as the Bible'southward book of 1 Thessalonians, he talks about how to mourn for lost loved ones. He helps us to understand how we can grieve well.

"Brothers and sisters, we do non want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in decease, so that you do non grieve like the residual of flesh, who accept no hope" (1 Thessalonians iv:xiii, NIV).

In this passage, "those who slumber in expiry" is referring to followers of Jesus who have passed away. Paul says that we can grieve that they are no longer here and yet have hope that in Jesus they live in eternity.

The same principle applies to grief over sin. You tin can grieve your own sin and the sin of others, all the while knowing that yous take hope in Christ. You are a new cosmos. You are forgiven and restored in Jesus.

Invite the Lord to Change Your Mind

When you lot have confessed and grieved these things, y'all can enquire God to help you lot believe what is true. He is the one who renews your listen and changes your centre.

God is the one who grows your faith and makes you new. Ask Him to help yous believe the things that He says of you.  Ask Him to keep to brand y'all into the person that He intends you to be in Jesus.

He is faithful, and He will do it.

Invite Others to Help You lot

God never meant for you to walk with Jesus on your own. He brings people into your life then that you can encourage 1 another.

When you are struggling with past sin or fake and discouraging behavior, share that struggle with a trusted friend. Inviting others to pray for you and remind you of the truth tin can be so benign.

A laic that is farther along on their faith journeying can provide neat insight to y'all every bit you walk with Jesus. Consider inviting a fellow believer to mentor you in areas that are a struggle for you lot.

When Christ followers bear 1 another's burdens, they not only abound closer to the Lord, only they grow in unity with other Christ followers.

Seeing Yourself every bit God Sees You Matters

If y'all put your faith in Jesus, yous take a new identity in Him. The more yous become to know Jesus through His give-and-take and time in prayer, the more than you will understand your identity in Him.

The more you go to know Jesus, the more you lot will exist able to identify areas of your life that y'all are not living in this identity by the ability of the Holy Spirit.

If you lot believed that you were all that God says you lot are in Christ, how would that alter the way you lived, the way you interact with others, or the style that you relate to the Lord?

As you find your identity in Christ, you will grow to look more similar Him and less like the earth. You will grow in intimacy with Him and with other believers.

Where Do I Go From Here?

To larn more than most finding your identity in Christ, go through the practise described in "How to Discover Your True Identity."

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