Lately in my spiritual walk identity has been a huge issue. You know how it is, you mess up and you feel like you’ve got to drag it around with you. Not that God is judging you, but you’ve got to judge yourself because someone has to, right? On top of it all, you’ve got to remember who you are and remember your roots!
Well it’s really hard to become pure and to let yourself be renewed by God when you’re lugging around a portrait of your old self and whenever God wants to be an active part of your life pull it out and say “But God, you can’t love me! You can’t want to be with me! look who I am! Look what I’ve done!” Not that I knew I was doing that, but sometimes we cling to our pasts because we feel it gives us an edge.
Hanging out with a bunch of drug dealers it makes you feel less awkward when you don’t think of yourself as lily white. My strategy for witnessing wasn’t become one of them, just think like one of them. I didn’t go out and do drugs and sleep around and party…. I just thought of myself on the same level as people who do those things. Which is completely wrong because…
I’m not lily white…
I’m redeemed.
My problem is that I’ve been carting around a picture of pre-redemption me and calling it a mirror. I’ve been taking what God destroyed and claiming it as my reflection. What’s worse is I felt uncomfortable around fellow believers because “Oh they’ll judge me because sooner or later I’m going to slip up and show them who I really am!”
Well who am I really?
At this point in life that I’m at all my peers are discovering who they are and what they want out of life. Identity is crucial to making it out of this stage of life and identity is everything. Identity is your thesis, your purpose, your reason for existence….
And up until a week ago my identity was the old flesh. When I looked in the mirror I saw what I haven’t let myself stop seeing ever since I sold out.
Isaiah 43
1 But now, this is what the Lord says—
he who created you, Jacob,
he who formed you, Israel:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
2 When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.
3 For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;
I give Egypt for your ransom,
Cush[a] and Seba in your stead.
4 Since you are precious and honored in my sight,
and because I love you,
I will give people in exchange for you,
nations in exchange for your life.
This is who God sees.