Who Are You?

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been studying “Who Am I?” in middle school ministry. As I’ve learned more as I prepared for class and I thought I would share here. So many times, we are defined by what we do or our title – at work and at home. We search for value and meaning from those around us. Our identity and how we define ourselves drives our thoughts and actions and many times to our detriment. We get so busy trying to “do” that we stop “being”. 

That’s why it is so freeing to be defined by our Creator and to know who we are and who we were created to be. God told us who we are in His Word, but we forget or don’t really grasp what it means. It doesn’t make sense that the creation can define itself, even if it has the ability to reason and the gift of free will. No matter what we call ourselves, we were defined before we were born. According to the word, we are more than conquerors in Christ (Rom 8:37).  We are the head and not the tail.  We are above and not beneath (Deut 28:13).  We are salt and light in the earth (Matt 5:13-16). If we begin to speak the Word over our lives, I believe we will begin to line up with what the Word says and see our lives change. 

So, let’s talk more about a few of the identifying traits right now:

We were created in the image of God (Gen 1:27), whether we choose to have a relationship with Him through Jesus or not. God gave us the ability to be inventive and creative. He gave us the ability to reason and think for ourselves. He gave us the ability to learn and love and show kindness. We are created in His image but still dependent upon Him for our very lives. We only exist at His allowance. 

If we’ve been saved by His magnificent Grace, we are the righteousness of God…not because of anything we did or can do in the future but because of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection. Because Jesus is righteous, when we accept Him as personal savior, His righteousness becomes ours (2 Cor 5:21). There is nothing we can do to deserve to be righteous or anything we can say that makes us righteous – it is all Jesus’s doing, but we do have to accept the gift He gives. We couldn’t earn it, it is by God’s grace that we are saved through faith (Eph 2:8-9).

Christ followers are Citizens of Heaven (Phil 3:20-21). The bible is clear that we are visitors in this world. We are not here to stay. When we accept Jesus, we get our citizenship in Heaven and that is where we will spend eternity. Because the soul doesn’t die, it will go somewhere. As followers of Jesus, we can rest in confidence that we will go to the place He is preparing for us where we will be with Him (John 14:2-3). 

How does it make you feel to know how God thinks of you? It makes me feel valuable and able to stand in the now knowing that I don’t have to be perfect or different. He wants me to be fully my authentic self…..the person He made me to be – not who I think I ought to be or who pleases me – I’m not on the throne. He is.