Whose Are You?

How do you define yourself?  If someone were to ask you who you are, how would you answer that question?  The issue of identity is an important one.  Maybe you define yourself by your job, or maybe your kids are what define you.  Maybe it’s the stuff you have, or the things you aspire to.  But what happens when all those things are taken away?  What happens when all the fluff of our lives melts away and we stand before God alone?  Then the question becomes how does God define you.  Are you his child?  Or have you turned away from him?

Acts 17: 24-28 says, “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.  And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.  From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.  God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.  For in him we live and move and have our being.” 

The challenge of the week has been for us to know who we are in Christ.  A big part of being part of the kingdom of God is having an understanding that we belong to Christ and find our meaning and definition in him.  First Peter 2:9 says, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”  If you are in Christ, you belong to God, and as you seek his face, you will be transformed more and more into the image of Jesus.  We take on the character of God: his justice, mercy, patience, truthfulness, goodness, kindness, righteousness, life, and love.    

In Genesis 1:7 when God made man it says that he “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”  God didn’t just breathe air into man’s lungs.  He breathed his Holy Spirit, allowing us to not only bear God’s image, but also to have communion with him.  I don’t know about you, but the fact that God loves us enough to allow us to be his image bearers is pretty incredible.  It makes defining myself by the externals seem silly.  Why would I define myself by the things I do or the stuff I have when God himself has already given me definition?