Identity (Who Are You?)
Everyone takes their identity seriously. Especially, in these political and social climates, not only identifying your identity, but also expressing your identity to the public became a virtue with significance. We used to identify ourselves within a social norm as it was understood. Now, everyone can identify themselves with anything without any limit.
People identify themselves with their political views, religions, sexual orientations, races, ethnic backgrounds, age (generations), sport teams, careers and many more. These are very different ways to identify ourselves, but there is one consensus. SELF. The way we identify ourselves in this world is based on self. Whether it is about your preference on the taste of food or favorite color, we have this default setting in our minds and put self-preference as an anchor to find out who we are.
It is not very surprising why our country is so divided and polarized in many areas. If everyone looks at their mirror to decide who they are, then how can you value others who are so different from you? Or, what if you cannot find anything valuable in you as you look at yourself? What about human dignity? What about human rights?
What about God? What does the Bible tell us about it?
Dominion Over
“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Genesis 1:26-28 NKJV
Dominion over all the earth was the blessing and the command from God for Adam and Eve. As the image bearers, we are the physical representation of God, and receiving the authority to have dominion over all the earth, we become stewards of the earth. God called us to be the rulers of the earth. The earth was under our authority and responsibility. We are all created to be the rulers of the earth by God’s direct order!
Our sense of identity is not by digging ourselves, but from an external authority. God made you rulers. God made you special. Not within ourselves, but someone from the outside needs to come and give us that meaning and take us out of this mess.
Last year in July, A couple in Colorado bought a new washer and dryer from Lowes, and with all their excitement, they installed their new machines. They told their three year old girl, and four year old boy not to touch it. Less than a day later, everything changed. When the parents awoke the next day, their four year old boy was crying and trying to explain something to the parents but they could not understand him. A moment later they found out their three year old girl was locked in the washing machine, water pouring in and rotating. The only way for her to get out of the washing machine is someone from outside to come and get her out.
That’s what it means for us as we reach out to Jesus who can give us new identity.
Doubt Spreads
We need to take a close look at what Satan did to Eve in Genesis 3.
“Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” and the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:1-3 NKJV
Let’s pay close attention to Satan’s attitude. Did the serpent treat the woman (Eve) as someone ruling over the earth? As Satan casts doubt, he is implying the message to Eve that you are not the ruler of this earth. God declared to Adam and Eve that they are going to have dominion over the earth. But the serpent comes and doesn’t treat her that way. The serpent is asking Eve to prove her value, worth by doing something, looking in herself. The serpent implies that “You feel like you can see, but you don’t see things. You are not like God, eat this fruit, then you will be in full control like God.”
At the same time, what the serpent does is to make her believe that she will be God if she disobeys God’s words to find the meaning and her value and worth from herself and her own actions. Surprisingly, the serpent does the same thing today.
The Devil’s Strategy
What the devil wants us to do is either to think more highly of ourselves than we ought and lowly than we ought.
We struggle with these thoughts. The serpent is keeps telling us that we are not perfect, and have no worth or value. The serpent uses all the blessings from God, turns it to idols, forcing us to identify ourselves with the things that we possess, we drive, we earn, we feel and we live in. Satan pushes us to compare ourselves to others, and feel like we don’t have any value within us.
At the same time, we are tempted to believe that I am the most important one. My beliefs, my views, my way of life, my culture, my language and all that is mine is the greatest. The devil makes us to believe that we can be a god.
I have seen both, in my own life and others. Either way, if we try to identify ourselves by the way this world does, we will end up in these two ways.
Jesus Knew About It
“Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:14-16 NKJV
Jesus came down, and faced the challenges. The serpent attacked him basically in those two ways. The serpent used people to attack Jesus saying you are not important, you don’t have any worth, not valuable. Other times, the devil comes saying, “you are the son of God, the most high. You can make do things by your own because you are the son of God.”
Jesus went through everything, but He was not shaken. And the Bible says Jesus knows our weaknesses, and He knows what we are going through. That’s why Paul said, that we can come to the presence of God, and boldly ask for mercy and grace from Jesus! Jesus comes down as the image of God, and He revealed to us who we really are!
Don’t Go There But Stay in Jesus
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Romans 12:1-2 NKJV
This world is pushing us to come up with our identity looking at ourselves. That’s the way this world works. In this world, your identity based on yourself is most important. But Jesus came and He walked on this earth to show us how to live our lives with the identity from our Father, the creator of the universe, who loves us so much.
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name. John 1:12 NKJV
Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! 1 John 3:1 NKJV
26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:26-28 NKJV
How do you identify yourself? I can say one thing for sure that you are a CHILD of GOD.
