Where Does Your Identity Come From?

All too often we grow up listening to others around us in order to build our concepts about our self worth and identity.  The world builds the idea of their identity and self worth measured by what they look like or what they can accomplish and this produces a terrible platform for building self-esteem and identity. Christians should be developing their identity and self-worth from the word of God and why he made us. Mind you, I have heard some really twisted ideas in sermons about a persons lack of value.  It makes me wonder if these preachers ever read the bible as a whole because they paint the picture that people have no redeeming value in themselves at all and God only saved us because he felt sorry for humanity, not because God valued humanity even with our brokenness.  

From the worldly perspective, “TRUTH” has become so fluid and variable in its meaning that there seems to be no concrete meaning for what is true and what isn’t. The Word of God, on the other hand, is timeless in challenging us to develop our identity from what God has said about us as people, which is consistent from one generation to the next. Make no mistake about it, if we build our self worth and identify from our accomplishments as a core measurement we will always feel poorly about who we are as human beings. Life has a way of showing our flaws and weaknesses as we compare ourselves to others accomplishments or status and that’s exactly what Satan wants for all of us. 

King David, who God identified as a man after his own heart, understood that he was made special because he was created by God and secondly, because each human being was special due to the make up and complexity of the human body. How amazing it is that preachers will distort biblical perspectives in order to fit their theological bias. They build sermons on a few passages that builds a case that man is worthless without God and fail to see man, even in his broken state, still has value in himself and to God.

Psalms 139:14-16        

I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. [15] My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; [16] Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them.

David was not referring to his physical appearance or his height or his intellectual abilities, he was referring to the complexity of the human body. Although David did not know about DNA in his day he could see the fruit of God’s labors and marveled at how integrate all his organs and frame were. The most broken person in this world is still reflecting the amazing care and design of our creator which should show us we have value beyond our looks or accomplishments.

Since the time of Adam and Eve our bodies have demonstrated the wonderful ability of our creator.  Nearly 3,000 years after David, when DNA was first discovered in 1869 by Swiss researcher Friedrich Miescher, humanity got a glimpse of how wonderfully God designed us. Miescher was originally trying to study the composition of lymphoid cells and not the unique make up of each person in DNA. He discovered in an elementary way the complexity of the human body, which was designed by God who was guiding him in his understanding. I believe many breakthroughs in medical science are due in a large part by God because he sees humanity becoming more and more lost without a special revelation that the human body, along with all of created beings around us, show that this did not happen by chance or evolution but by a designer who wanted to reveal himself.

What bothers me even more than the worlds warped view of building our identity on accomplishments is how we Christians seem to use the same foolish logic instead of the word of God to build our true identity. So many preachers expound on the worthlessness of human being rather than reading God’s word about how much God loves us “BEFORE” we came to Christ for salvation. Scripture does not say that God saved people because we were worthless but because he loved us and valued us. His love is a demonstration of who we are to him. For God to have an elaborate plan of redemption, starting at creation, shows how he values humanity and will go to great lengths to recover his original design and intention for our creation that was given in John 17:3. God saves us for relationship that was not marked by sin and rebellion but oneness for the purpose of oneness. To think of salvation outside of an intimate relationship is to prevent his intentions in scripture.

John 3:16-17       

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. [17] “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. 

Now granted, humanity needs Jesus to cleanse us from our sin, but God also sees value in us prior to salvation as well. We, as God’s redeemed children, share our faith because we know God loves all humanity and doesn’t want anyone to be lost to sin for eternity. The plain fact of scripture is that God wants all men to find redemption, not just some special group some preaches call the elect.

1 Timothy 2:3-4       

This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.  

The church needs to get back on track with sharing and preaching God’s love for lost people but we can only do that effectively when we see how much God values people, even in their broken state. As an example, I have purchased many cars through the years to restore them because those cars, even broken down and not operating, still had value in them. I rebuilt engines in cars that most people thought were beyond repair and they were amazed. The reason I purchased these cars was because I could see their value and others could not. In the same way, God sees our value even when we don’t live up to his original plan for us as people. He can see that we can be redeemed when others can not and it is for that reason we call him our savior.

Think about what God’s word says about us. It says that we have become children of God! Why would God adopt us if we had no value?  He would not! He redeems what he can see is still valuable and then gives us not only redemption but an inheritance as well.

Romans 8:16-17       

The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that  we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. 

Our self-esteem should come from the fact that we have value even in our brokenness and that God is willing to redeem us from our brokenness if we yield to his power. Our value does not originate in what we do or what we can accomplish but in our creation and design by God himself. It is this foundation that we should build our skills and abilities and not on our performance in life. The apostle Paul wrote so eloquently that when Christ comes into our life God reverses the corruption we developed so that his purpose in us would once again happen. We need to build our lives around our unique God given value, which he created in the image of God, and accept from God his purpose in our lives rather than what the world and Satan offers us.

2 Corinthians 5:17     

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 

Self-esteem is how we value and perceive ourselves. It’s based on our opinions and beliefs about ourselves, which should be based in what God says in his word and not what the world or some pastors tell us. Our self-confidence should be anchored in who God made us to be and not on whether we accomplish certain things in life. Granted, we were all designed to change things in life for the better but that is secondary to why we have value. We have value because God created us in his image for fellowship with him and others.

It is important to realize that you already have value even when you fail at different tasks in life. God knows and created us to learn valuable lessons through our labors, even when we fail at them. Each attempt to succeed, even in failure, teaches us what does work and what doesn’t work. Failure can be the best lesson in life towards the pursuit for which we have been created.

Questions:

1) Have you allowed the world’s idea of success to blind you towards your value? Just consider the lengths God has gone and will go to help you become the child of God he is proud of.

2) Do you struggle trying to find self acceptance in God rather the world? If you don’t read the word of God with an open mind of discovery, rather than the bias of your theology, you will never be able to feel good about who you are to God.

Seeking to know God and make him known,

Pastor Dale