It Makes Sense

This past Sunday, Dr. Avant told us to not let our identity be stolen. Webster has several definitions of identity, but the one that seems to fit is “condition or character as to who a person or what a thing is”. Further, it lists “the individual characteristics by which a thing or person is recognized or known”.

I spent the better part of my Christian life trying to establish my identity and my own place in the world. My mindset was that I was my own person and I would live life around that person. Part of living life for me included reading the Bible and praying. I read my Bible and made the verses I read fit around my identity. I prayed to God with requests that fit around my identity. Many times those prayers contained the words “and make ME a better person” . Basically saying that my identity needed some work and God please fix it.

It was only a few years ago during a quiet time that the flaws in that thinking came rushing to me. My identity was tied to self – MYself. But there was no fixing self. It was flawed and would forever be flawed. What I needed was a “self-adectomy”. A new self to replace the old one. What a unique thought –the self that I had taken as my identity needed to die. Wonder how many times in the Bible it tells us that? How many hundreds of times had I read it? That led me immediately to the scriptures that talk about becoming more Christlike, letting Christ live in you, and losing your life (self) in order to gain life.

It now all made sense. As I allowed my self to die or diminish, Christ’s character had more and more room to grow. At some point, I became more like Christ than I was like my old self - who was dying. My identity was Christ’s identity, not mine. But self doesn’t go quietly in the night – it is the fight of your lifetime. You don’t easily give up years of developing who you think you are to surrender to someone else – even if that someone is God, the creator of the universe.

I have survived almost drowning, being shot, cancer and a family member with drug addiction but my identity never changed – because it was Christ in me, not my old self. Satan may be able to steal that part your identity that is “self” , but he will never be able to steal your identity in Christ.

Mark Parrish