Who Are You in Christ?
See what great love the Father has
lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! – 1 John 3:1a
Accept one another, then, just as
Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. – Romans 15:7
We get so caught up in labels, don’t we? This person
owns her own company. That person teaches school. The man over there works on
the military base. It all sounds good – until it isn’t.
She stays home with her kids. He refuses to work. He
is obese. She is lazy. Their kids are out of control. Did you see what she
wore? Did you smell his breath?
Gosh but we can be mean. We call ourselves justified
but there’s no justification for judging circumstances we can’t possibly
understand. There’s no justification for putting others down in a vain attempt
to build ourselves up.
Oh, no! That’s not so, we explain. Really? Are you
saying you don’t feel a little bit better about yourself, a little more secure
in your position, in your life, when you look down on someone else? I’m not
buying it.
Those arrows hurt. They cause us to question who we
are. They remind us that no matter how much we accomplish or how hard we try,
there will always be someone who does it a little bit better.
I am so thankful that our identity doesn’t come from
the things we do or don’t do, from how we look or who we know. Our income or
our address or the car we drive don’t factor into our worth.
We are valuable because of Jesus. Our identity – our true
identity – comes from Him. Jesus thought we were good enough to die for. Jesus
reached out His hand and, with His blood, calls us blameless. And because of
this God looks at us with love and beckons us into His Presence.
Don’t let this world beat you down. Don’t believe the
lies those daggers shoot at you day after day. You are loved. You are
cherished. You are more than enough. When life gets tough today, rest in that.
