Identity crisis

I think all of us have one of those at some point or another in our life.  We try to figure out who we are and what our purpose is and then life happens and our whole identity shifts or we let others dictate our identity to us....

• Daughter
• Mother
• Employee
• Employer
• Wife
• Empty Nester
• Spinster
• Abuse victim
• Had an abortion
• Divorcee
• Abandoned
• Rejected

The list could go on and on....

We, women especially, tend to label ourselves negatively. We live under the loneliness, shame and condemnation of an identity either given to us by someone else or by ourselves. This is why a lot of us live in crisis rather than in freedom. 

We are not a sum of our sins or of sins committed against us.  We are not a sum of our mistakes or misjudgments or failures.  We are not a sum of choices made by other people to harm us or to use us.  Those things are pieces of our story but they do not make up who we are. 

So who are we?  Where does our identity come from? Our identity shouldn't be based on what "man" thinks of us but rather it should come from the Lord! 

Psalm 139:13-16 says - For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.  My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

You were created on purpose!  To look exactly as you look.  To have the exact talents and gifts that you have.  To live in this exact time and place.  You have never been hidden from God.  He has, does and will always SEE you! 

Ephesians 2:10 says - For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

You are God's masterpiece!  Webster defines masterpiece as a work done with extraordinary skill; especially :  a supreme intellectual or artistic achievement.  YOU are a supreme achievement.  YOU!  That's you! That's me! We are God's masterpiece!

Romans 3:23-24 says - for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:1-2 says - Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death

You have been set free! We all make mistakes.  We have all sinned.  But we have all been set FREE! We do not have to live under condemnation or shame.  We do not have to label ourselves as ashamed or guilty.  When we go to the Lord and bear our heart to Him and ask Him to forgive us, He does!  God sets us free!

2 Corinthians 5:17 says - Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

You are made new! You have a new identity in Christ!  Whatever you have believed about yourself in the past or whatever anyone else has labeled you - that is the old and Christ has made you new!  All the promises in God's Word apply to you!  Jeremiah 29:11 - He has a plan for you! ; Romans 8:38 - You are more than a conqueror! ;  Philippians 4:13 - You can do all things thru Christ! ; Deuteronomy 31:6 - He will never leave you!

John 3:16 says - For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Ephesians 1:3-8 says - Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.

You are blessed, chosen, adopted, redeemed and forgiven!  God paid the ultimate price for you - His Son!  You were worth dying for!  You are valuable in His sight!  Your identity shouldn't come from the lies of the enemy - put your identity where it truly belongs - in Christ! Put it in His arms that were outstretched for you on the cross! Everything else pales in comparison when we look at our reflection thru the eyes of the Lord rather than thru the eyes of ourselves or others.

I'm not sure I have expressed in all these many words what it truly means to find your identity in Christ so I want to leave you with one of my all time favorite songs that speaks right to the heart of this matter.  Often times, music can express in just a few minutes what would take an endless volume of written words...

Redeemed by Big Daddy Weave: