Identity In Christ - Who I Am

I am the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13). 

13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. 

I am the light of the world (Matthew 5:14). 

14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.

I am a child of God (John 1:12). 

12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God

I am — part of the true vine, and Christ’s life flows through me (John 15: 1,5). 

15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 

I am Christ’s friend (John 15:15). 

15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

I am chosen by Christ to bear fruit (John 15:16). 

16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.

I am Christ’s personal witness sent out to tell everybody about Him (Acts 1:8). 

8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

I am a slave of righteousness (Romans 6:18). 

18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. 

I am a slave to God, making me holy and giving me eternal life (Romans 6:22). 

22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 

I am a child of God; I can call Him my Father (Romans 8:14-15; Galatians 3:26; 4:6). 

14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.[a] And by him we cry, “Abba,[b] Father.” 

26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith,

6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba,[a] Father.”

 I am a co-heir with Christ, inheriting His glory (Romans 8:17). 

17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. 

I am a temple – a dwelling place – for God. His Spirit and His life live in me (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19). 

16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?
19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 

I am joined forever to the Lord and am one spirit with Him (1 Corinthians 6:17). 

17 But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

I am part of Christ’s Body (1 Corinthians 12:27). 

27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

I am a new person. My past is forgiven and everything is new (2 Corinthians 5:17). 

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here!


I Am at peace with God, and He has given me the work of helping others find peace with Him (2 Corinthians 5:18-19). 

18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 

I am a child of God and one with others in His family (Galatians 3:26-28). 

26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

I am a child of God and will receive the inheritance He has promised (Galatians 4:6-7). 

6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba,
[a] Father.” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir. 

I am a saint, a holy person (Ephesians 1:1; Philippians 1:1; Colossians 1:2). 

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To God’s holy people in Ephesus,[a] the faithful in Christ Jesus: 

1 Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all God’s holy people in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons[a]:

2 To God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters[a] in Christ: Grace and peace to you from God our Father.[b] 

I am a citizen of heaven seated in heaven right now (Ephesians 2:6; Philippians 3:20). 

6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,

I am God’s building project, His handiwork, created in Christ to do His work (Ephesians 2:10). 

10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

I am a citizen of heaven with all of God’s family (Ephesians 2:19). 

19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, 

I am a prisoner of Christ so that I can help others (Ephesians 3:1; 4:1). 

3 For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles—
4 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.

I am righteous and holy (Ephesians 4:24). 

24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

I am hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3). 

3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

I am an expression of the life of Christ because He is my life (Colossians 3:4). 

4 When Christ, who is your[a] life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

I am chosen of God, holy and dearly loved (Colossians 3:12; 1 Thessalonians 1:4). 

12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 

4 For we know, brothers and sisters[b] loved by God, that he has chosen you,

I am a child of light, not of darkness (1 Thessalonians 5:5). 

5 You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness.

I am chosen to share in God’s heavenly calling (Hebrews 3:1). 

3 Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest.

I am part of Christ; I share in His life (Hebrews 3:14). 

14 We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.

I am one of God’s living stones, being built up in Christ as a spiritual house (1 Peter 2:5). 

9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 

I am only a visitor to this world in which I temporarily life (1 Peter 2:11). 

11 Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. 

I am an enemy of the devil (1 Peter 5:8). 

8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 

I am a child of God, and I will be like Christ when He returns (1 John 3:1-2). 

3 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears,[a] we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

I am born again in Christ, and the evil one – the devil – cannot touch me (1 John 5:18). 

18 We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the One who was born of God keeps them safe, and the evil one cannot harm them. 

I am a member of a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God (1 Peter 2: 9-10). 

o 5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house[a] to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 

I am not the great “I am” (Exodus 3:14; John 8:24, 28, 58), but by the grace of God, I am what I am (1 Corinthians 15:10).

o 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 

 

 

Weed Seeds and the Atheist

 

One of my interests in life is having imaginary debates in my mind with atheists about why there really is a God and why they should revert from their beliefs. Weird I know, but fun for me to try and think of reasons, and maybe also on a deeper level to prove to myself that God exists and that his word is true. One recent thought I had about proving there is a God came from my dog of all things…. He had just come in from being in the woods and I had to brush out the burrs and stick tights that he had all over him. I got to thinking about the burr and it dawned on me that even this little annoying thing could in some way prove God exists. How? Well, I got to thinking about the special structure of the burr (the plants seed) and how it is specially “engineered” to cling to fur so that the plant can spread its seed to other places. With this in mind, the obvious question is how the plant’s seed got to be this way. If a person did not believe in God, then they would probably argue that it is evolution or something similar as to how it obtained the structure it has. So, this spawns a series of questions that I would throw out to the atheists:

    1    Why would the plant want to, or even care about spreading its seeds? You must be saying that the plant has a desire, a thought process or even an emotional state in order to want to spread it’s seeds because there is no direct benefit to the plant to do so.

    2    How did the plant know there were animals walking around that it could attach its seeds to? Does the plant have some type of eyes or special sensory device to know that there are animals and even more, know that animals have hair & fur?

    3    How did the plant know how to engineer its seeds to stick to hair & fur? It must have some high level of intelligence to be able to engineer its own seeds to be able to have a Velcro type exterior shell that could stick to many different surfaces.

    4    Now consider other seeds like the maple tree’s seed and how it is specially engineered like a wing and is able to fly down like a little helicopter to a new location. So do these trees have a degree in aerodynamics? Or consider some seeds that need fire in order to be released like the seeds of the Jack Pine. How did this tree know there was going to be fires and then be able to engineer a pod that would only open upon intense heat from a fire?

So, for me it is painfully obvious that plants themselves should not be given the credit for the special ways in which they populate the earth unless you have some sort of clear answers for the questions above. It’s clear to me that God is proven in even in little annoying things like the burr and I hope this little blurb sticks in your the next time you have to remove a bunch of these from your jeans after walking in the woods, and remember that God is proven in even in the small annoying things.

Free to believe

If you were stopped on the street and asked, "What do you believe about God?" How would you respond? Are you believing for a future event? Are you believing for your present reality? 

Often the question turns from "who I believe God to be" to "what am I getting from God". And, that is definitely a part of it. If we start with what we are getting we often do not end up knowing God any better. What we "get" flows from "who" our heavenly Father is. So, let's take a minute and look at who he is.

The Lord is My Shepherd...Psalm 23 David the Psalmist is making this declaration about the Lord. What a great place to be in, where we allow the Lord to Shepherd our lives. Shepherd's protect and provide for their sheep...makes me lie down in green pastures, leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul, he guides me in paths of righteousness. How good is that?

The Lord Most High...Genesis 14.19. The God who possesses heaven and earth. The one who rules over heaven and earth. Such a strong picture. There is no equal to the Lord Most High. He has no peers. And to think that the Lord Most High protects and provides for us is beautiful and comforting for our souls. 

The Lord Who Heals...Genesis 20.17. Abraham prayed and God healed. Healing for physical needs. Healing for the land. Healing for a broken heart. Healing for our relationship to the living God. Would your prayers change if you believed the Lord wanted you to be whole? 

Meditate on who the Lord is, through these and many more passages. Possibly write out Psalm 23 and read through it several times a day. May you come to believe all the good that He has in store for those who believe in Him. Believing is not a passive activity. It does not just happen. It is an act of our will. May you consider the testimony of who God is and engage your will to believe that goes beyond mere words to actions. 

 

 

    

Free to Follow

Paul wrote...For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. Galatians 5.13

Freedom is a tricky thing. Freedom means we have a choice. We can choose to go back to that which leads to death and engage in the lifestyle that Jesus lived and died to free us from. That lifestyle is not really life at all it is death. If I offer myself to the desires of my flesh I become a slave to that lifestyle. 

However in our freedom we can also choose to offer ourselves to God to serve him and others in love.

The weird part is that we will choose. Either passively, by not making an overt choice. Or, we will choose proactively. 

There are no get rich quick schemes. Wealth is built by making wise choices with resources over a long period of time. A life that is worth living is built in a similar way, by making the choice to offer myself to God as his servant. I often see people who experience the euphoria of experiencing Jesus Christ. It is wonderful to watch. The danger comes by not connecting this newfound freedom to developing this relationship and offering myself to serve others in love. 

You are free to follow and free to walk away. Chose through the freedom and power of Jesus Christ right now to turn from the old and embrace the new. That is freedom!