“To the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. “Ephesians 1:6

Scripture is filled with different descriptions of what God says about you. From the beginning of the Bible, God says you are valuable and made in His own image and likeness. He goes on to say you are His beloved child. You are chosen and adopted into His family through Jesus Christ. Once you are forgiven and saved through faith in Christ, you are redeemed and set free from sin. God says you become a new person. 

Through salvation, you gain an altogether new identity and a whole new life. Scripture says: “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” He also calls you His friend and an ambassador to the world. You are a member of the body of Jesus Christ and exceedingly loved. You are an heir to His perfect heavenly kingdom and a citizen of heaven.

What Your Identity in Christ Means

Your identity in Christ is first and foremost one of newness. You are a new creation in Christ. You are no longer a slave to sin and this completely changes your relationship with God and your family, just as it starts changing the way you view the world. Instead of fearing God as judge, you have the great privilege of coming to Him as your Father. You can approach Him with confidence and ask of Him what you need including His guidance and wisdom. This means you can also walk in freedom and no longer allow the past to define you. 

You are also part of the family of God with a specific role within that family. Each role is tailored to how God made us and we each act those out with respect, grace and love for one another. You also are released from our citizenship of the world. Things of the earth no longer draw you, and you don’t place importance on things the world values. You start to think differently as your mind is no longer conformed to the world. 

 Image is Not Identity

Satan wants to do everything possible to deceive and discourage you. The Bible says he is the father of all lies hoping to blind the minds of unbelievers. He also wants you to base your self-worth on feelings or the opinions of others.  The enemy tries to get you to believe that God makes mistakes. That was his original lie to Adam and Eve, and he still uses it today. He also hopes the challenges of living in a broken world will cause you to question God’s love for you. If that does not work, then he wants you to focus on creating an image of who you want the world to see you as. He uses this to keep you busy and from not seeing your true identity.

The problem is image never equals identity.

Image is about self-perception. That leads to behavior and decisions made to manage our appearance and what we wish others think about us. When you do this, you are constantly changing who you are and what you do in order to try to manage how others see and accept you. And worse, you have to keep changing those things based on who you are with or what circumstances exist in any given moment.

This is exhausting. Trying to “make myself look better than I am” always fails in the end. We want to encourage you to stop trying to find identity through image, career or feelings. Do not buy into the lies of the enemy.  True identity is ultimately based on your relationship with Christ. That relationship builds character. Character is who you really are and doesn’t change. You can only find the real the answer to “Who am I” when you look to Jesus first.

Your TRUE IDENTITY is only found through your relationship with your Jesus Christ.