Tag Archives: Identity

Chapter-a-Day

Back to Babel

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Back to Babel (CaD Gen 11) – Wayfarer

Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves…”
The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.
Genesis 11:4, 6 (NIV)

Over the past month, Wendy and I have been listening to a podcast called The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. The podcast documents the story of a small group of people in Seattle who started a church, which became a movement, and then it was gone almost overnight. It’s also the story of the pastor, a young man who became one of the most famous and influential individuals in Christian circles. Yesterday, while I spent the day driving on a business trip, I listened to a bonus episode about another young man who also became famous and influential at about the same time, and then deconstructed his faith (something of a fad at the moment, FYI) and eventually announced on social media that he no longer identifies as a Christian.

After I returned home last night, Wendy and I discussed the episode. On one hand, there’s a morality tale in the stories of these individuals about the effects of celebrity, fame, and influence. There’s also a larger societal story about our culture of celebrity itself in which an individual can be a famous celebrity without having any particular talent or having accomplished anything other than to have become a celebrity.

Today’s chapter tells the story of the Tower of Babel and is the final story in Genesis which scholars would classify as primeval. It joins the story of creation, the Garden, Cain and Abel, Noah, and the Great Flood as foundational stories of the Great Story. On the surface, the Tower of Babel is intended to describe how humanity went from one people and then was scattered into different nationalities, cultures, and languages. Under the surface, it’s about humanity’s pride nature, and its ends.

Humanity is one homogeneous people group, and they conspire to build a tower to the heavens “to make a name for ourselves.” I thought this a bit of synchronicity in the quiet this morning as my heart and mind continue to mull over the stories I heard in the podcast about two young men who “made a name for themselves” only to find their own lives and the worlds of those who followed them crumble. In the case of the intervie w I listened to yesterday, at least one of the two is still reeling, confused, and lost like humanity itself at end of the Babel story.

But there’s another aspect to the Babel story that I recognized thirty years ago. As my life journey and spiritual journey have progressed, the more important I think this lesson is. In the story, God recognizes that humanity’s capabilities coupled with sinful pride will result in “nothing being impossible for them.” It seems that the narrative of the storyline is moving too quickly for God’s design, and the scattering of the peoples and confusing of the languages appears to be God’s way of slowing the pace of the narrative back down.

My earthly journey has been a fascinating time to live. I’ve watched the dawn of the computer age, experienced the beginning of the internet, I watched it grow, and witnessed how technology has effectively united the globe. Think about the coronavirus, which originates in China where scientists and countries from around the world had invested in woring together on biomedical research in a country who is considered less than friendly. I can’t imagine this happening even a generation ago.

Never, since the Tower of Babel, has humanity been more of a global village increasingly uniting under the umbrella of technology and connected to all countries and cultures through social media. Just last week the Wall Street Journal said that Facebook will soon be the sole news source for 80-90 percent of the entire world population.

I’ve also come to recognize that perhaps, for the first time since the Tower of Babel, we’re living in a generation that can say “nothing is impossible for us.” We can genetically design babies. Scientists hope to birth a Wooly Mammoth in the lab within a few years. W illiam Shatner, at 92, will take a commercial ride in space next month. In the last month I’ve read articles about scientists who are focused on making it possible for humans live forever. Mining asteroids, life on Mars, and now Amazon announced a robot for your home that rolls around to assist you and monitor your home for threats. I can have my own personal Wall-E.

The question, of course, is where does it all lead? What fascinates me the most as I contemplate the answer to this question is that, factually, life on Earth has never been better on the whole. There’s less extreme poverty, less sickness, longer lives, better education, higher status for women, more access to information, better access to clean water supplies, and less starvation and malnutrition. This is true. It is a fact. Read Hans Rosling’s book Factfulness.

At the same time, I observe more and more confusion about who we are. Adults are asking children what gender they believe they are, then arranging to physically alter their biology. Scientifically, there are still just two genders, but philosophically we’re how told that there are endless genders to choose from based solely on my choice to identify in the moment. After centuries of progress towards ending slavery, reducing prejudice, and accepting bi-racial and cross-cultural marriages in an increasingly large global village, we’re suddenly regressing back into racial separation and segregation. What was once good is now bad. What was once bad is now good. What was once regressive is now progressive. Children now make life-altering adult decisions. Adults now chase an endless childhood. I am who I identify myself as in the moment, but that might change. What is important is what’s trending in the moment. What’s not important is anything in the past or that which is not trending.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself fascinated by the world in which I live, where increasingly “nothing is impossible.” I find myself mulling over the possibility that we are in process of building a new Tower of Babel with DNA, 5G networks, stem cells, lasers, robotics and fiber optics. I find myself marveling at a culture that appears to me to be increasingly confused despite all of our knowledge and advancement.

I find myself grateful for my simple identity…

“Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” John 1:12 (NIV)

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Contrasting Identity

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Contrasting Identity (CaD John 18) – Wayfarer

“You aren’t one of this man’s disciples too, are you?” [a servant girl] asked Peter.
He replied, “I am not.”
John 18:17 (NIV)

One of the themes I’ve been watching in John’s biography of Jesus is that of identity. John’s entire biography is thematically told around seven metaphorical “I am” statements that Jesus made paralleled by seven major miracles. These are not casual choices on John’s part.

When God revealed Himself to Moses, Moses asked God to identify Himself. God identified himself as “I Am.” Jesus’ seven “I am…” statements with their metaphors are a subtle proclamation John is making as to the complete divinity of Jesus as the Christ, while the miracles form a complete witness to divine power Jesus displayed in that claim of divinity. The number seven in the Great Story is the number of “completeness” (e.g. seven days of creation).

The seven “I am” statements:

  • “I am the Bread of Life” (6:35, 48)
  • “I am the Light of the World” (8:12; 9:5)
  • “I am the Gate” (10:7)
  • “I am the Good Shepherd” (10:11, 14)
  • “I am the Resurrection and the Life” (11:25)
  • “I am the Way, the Truth, the Life” (14:6)
  • “I am the True Vine” (15:1)

The seven miracles (before His death & resurrection):

  • Changing water to wine (2:1-11)
  • Healing the official’s son (4:43-54)
  • Healing the disabled man by the Bethesda pool (5:1-15)
  • Feeding the 5,000 (6:1-14)
  • Walking on water (6:16-21)
  • Healing the man born blind (9:1-12)
  • Raising Lazarus from the dead (11:1-14)

But the theme of identity is not confined to the identity of Jesus. John is careful to choose stories that point to the identity of the religious leaders, the identity of those whom Jesus spoke to, the identity of those whom Jesus healed, and the identity of those who followed Jesus.

In today’s chapter, what struck me was how Peter’s denials stood out in stark contrast to Jesus’ claims. I couldn’t help but reflect on the fact that Peter was not only the appointed leader of The Twelve, but his given name was Simon and Jesus gave Him a new name and a new identity: No longer the fisherman from Capernaum, Jesus gave Simon the identity of Peter, “the rock” on which I will build my church.”

Yet as Jesus, the “I Am,” is arrested and tried, the “rock” crumbles with three contrasting claims: “I am…not.”

I find something beautiful in the human fragility of Peter’s trinity of “I am not“s. As a follower of Jesus, it echoes the fragility of my own faith, the cracks in my own witness, and my own major failures that stand in stark contrast to the proclamation “I am a follower of Jesus.”

As Jesus fulfills His mission to suffer for the sins of the world, I find “the Rock” there as my representative. How apt that the Divinely appointed human “leader” of Jesus’ followers becomes the designated representative of human weakness.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself sitting in humility of my own humanity. A lyric from Bob Dylan’s song Every Grain of Sand comes to mind:

Don’t have the inclination to look back on any mistake,
Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break.

Peter’s story has the same ebb-and-flow as any follower of Jesus. A new direction and a new identity followed by a long life journey that include both miraculous highs and humiliating set-backs. It’s not just Peter’s story. It’s my story. It’s the story of every human being who sincerely answers Jesus’ offer to take up your own cross and follow. As the murderer and persecutor of Jesus’ followers Saul, given the new identity of Paul, follower of Jesus whom he persecuted, said:

“That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Motivation Revelation

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Motivation Revelation (CaD John 11) – Wayfarer

“If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.”
John 11:48 (NIV)

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting on the porch watching Milo playing with the garden hose. In his mind he was helping Papa water the landscape shrubs, but the truth was that he was playing with the nozzle on the hose that has a bunch of different types of spray. He would spray for a few seconds, then switch to the next setting, spray for a few seconds, then switch to the next setting, spray for a few seconds…you get the idea.

On the ground in front of me was Milo’s bubble gun. It’s a little battery operated toy into which you put soap solution into this small reservoir in the handle and it the shoots out a steady stream of bubbles. It’s pretty cool.

Holding the hose, Milo told me that he needed to put more water in the bubble gun as it was running low. It was obvious that he thought the hose nozzle in his hand was the perfect tool for the job. I agreed, but only if he let me help him. We selected the gentlest, most faucet-like spray setting, I unscrewed the reservoir and held it up as Milo pointed the nozzle toward the hole. Before I had a chance to help him gently open the flow of water, Milo cranked the sucker fully open. Water hit the edge of the reservoir and splattered everywhere, including all over Papa’s face.

Milo laughed hysterically at Papa.

Papa did not laugh. I very quietly and honestly said, “Papa’s not happy about that.”

What happened next was fascinating. Milo dropped the hose and ran about five feet away and turned away from me. He then sheepishly turned to look at me, brow furrowed. “I didn’t do it!” he cried emphatically.

Once again, in a soft and gentle voice I asked, “Well, if you didn’t do it, who did? You were the one holding the hose.”

He then slunk back to me with his head bowed. He picked up the hose.

“I didn’t mean to,” he said in almost a whisper.

I know little man. I know. It’s such a complex lesson for a three-year-old to grasp. Papa was unhappy about the consequences. As the adult in this situation, I fully knew the risk of filling a small, four ounce reservoir with a garden hose, and it was my choice to allow the calculated risk. Being frustrated with the outcome does not mean I am mad at you. I know you didn’t mean to, and I wasn’t mad at you. You misunderstood my reaction. There was no need to run in shame and deny pulling the trigger. To be honest, Papa’s observed many adults making the same basic misunderstanding as you just did without comprehending their reaction any more than you. You’re forgiven, little man, for misunderstanding.

Nevertheless, there was a spiritual lesson present in the moment.

Why do I do the things that I do?
Why do I say the things that I say?
Why do I make the choices I make?

Along my life journey, I’ve discovered that the answer to these questions is critically important both for my understanding of self and my understanding of others.

Today’s chapter is one of the most dramatic in the entire Great Story. The conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders has been escalating. Some had tried to stone him for blasphemy the last time He was in Jerusalem. The largest religious festival of the year, Passover, was just a week or two away. Jesus gets word that His friend, Lazarus, has died at his home in Bethany, just two miles from Jerusalem. Despite the disciples pleas to stay away from the area for Jesus’ own safety, Jesus returns to Bethany to find Lazarus dead four days, his body already entombed. Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead in front of a large crowd. Lazarus had been a prominent man, and Jews from Jerusalem had come to mourn with Lazarus’ sisters. They immediately report the astonishing miracle to the religious leaders in Jerusalem. This is a major event in driving the climactic events of Jesus betrayal, arrest, trials, and crucifixion.

There are so many great moments and spiritual lessons in today’s chapter that lie within the story of the miraculous raising of Lazarus. The verse that resonated most with me was that of the response of the religious leaders upon hearing the astonishing news of a man who was dead being brought back to life.

“What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.”

In making this statement, they laid bare their motivation.

They are afraid.

Afraid of losing their worldly power.
Afraid of their prestige being diminished.
Afraid of losing face with the hated Romans occupiers.
Afraid of life without the lucrative income of their religious racket.
Afraid of change to their staunch traditions and what that mean.

They were supposed to be the spiritual leaders of the nation, but their fear of losing all that they were, all that they had, and their desire to cling to all of it, was far greater than the desire to acknowledge and accept what God was clearly doing and saying in and through Jesus.

What a contrast to Jesus’ followers who let go of everything to follow Him. Their desire to seek what God was doing overcame any fear of what they might be giving up or fear of the challenges they might face.

In the quiet this morning, I’m searching my own motivations. In the previous chapter’s post, I wrote: “Actions reveal identity.” They do, but the identity doesn’t lie in the actions themselves, but in the motivations that spawned them. The motivations that often remain hidden and/or ignored.

As I look back on my own journey, I can see how shame motivated so many of my actions and choices through so much of my life. Along my spiritual journey, I’d like to think that my desire to follow Jesus and discover who I was created to be and who I am yet called to be has overcome that long ignored shame that drove so many unhealthy thoughts, words, behaviors, and choices in my early years. And, if I’m honest, still creeps in more than I care to admit.

“Old things pass away,” Paul wrote to the followers of Jesus in Corinth in discussing the spiritual transformation that takes place when in relationship with Him. My own experience is that some “things” pass away like a swift execution while other “things” pass away in a long, painful, lingering, and palliative process.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Words and Works

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Words and Works (CaD John 10) – Wayfarer

The Jews who were there gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”

Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep.
John 10:24-26 (NIV)

Wendy and I have been regular readers of the Wall Street Journal forever. The New York based newspaper is one of a few newspapers to have had subscribers across the entire nation, even before the dawn of the digital age.

One of the things that we have noticed across the years is that you can take the Wall Street Journal out of New York, but you can’t take New York out of the Wall Street Journal. The content, from news to opinion to lifestyle are clearly New York City centric and cater to wealthy business professionals in Manhattan who have always been the key constituency in their subscriber base. What this means, however, is that Wendy and I often shake our heads over morning coffee here in small town Iowa. The Wall Street Journal clearly doesn’t get life in fly-over country (even when they visit every four years for the Iowa caucuses) where life and business are still largely centered around agriculture and people see life differently based on a very different daily life experience.

In the same way, it’s often challenging for a 21st century reader to understand the context of a first century story-teller, but it’s not impossible. Learning the context reveals often profound understanding.

God’s base language is metaphor, and in today’s chapter Jesus uses one metaphor in two different messages He presents in the Temple in Jerusalem: the Shepherd. Shepherds and sheep were understood by all of Jesus’ listeners back in the day. Sheep were a staple in their lives for both food, clothing, and the religious system. In fact, the metaphor of the Shepherd was not new to Jesus. It’s all over the place in the ancient Psalms and the messages of the prophets in which God revealed Himself as the “Shepherd of Israel,” the religious leaders were, likewise, to “shepherd” God’s people, and the coming Messiah was prophesied to be a true Shepherd to care for God’s people. Moses was a shepherd. David was a shepherd. Shepherd is an important metaphor in the Great Story.

In Jesus’ word picture, He is both a gate by which sheep go out to pasture and return to the safety of their home, and the Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep because they are His sheep. He is not a thief, robber, or rustler who seeks to steal sheep for their own selfish aims.

John then moves the narrative to another time Jesus was teaching in the Temple in Jerusalem during another national religious festival in which he again uses the metaphor of Shepherd and sheep. There is still tremendous debate and division over Jesus true identity. He is asked plainly: “Are you the Messiah, or not?”

Jesus responds with an interesting statement: “I told you already, not with words, but by my actions, my works, and my signs. You didn’t get it because you’re not my sheep.”

Actions reveal identity.

Jesus says basically the same thing as He did in the previous chapter, but with a different metaphor:

I Am the Light of the World:
– There are blind who I make see
– There are those who see who I cause to go blind

I Am the Good Shepherd:
– My sheep know my voice and follow
– Those who don’t know my voice don’t follow; Not my sheep

What really stuck out to me, however, was that His true identity was revealed by words or claims but by works and deeds. It is the same thing Jesus told The Twelve later: They’ll know you’re mine, not by your claims, but by your love for one another. Jesus’ brother, James, would pick up on this in his letter to the exiled followers of Jesus scattered across the Roman empire: “Faith by itself, with no action, is dead. Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.”

In the quiet this morning, I am reminded that even when Jesus was walking the earth performing signs and wonders, there were many who remained blind and deaf to His message. Why should I think that it would be any different today? I’m also reminded that my claim to be a follower of the Good Shepherd is basically worthless. Jesus said so Himself. It is those acts of love, grace, mercy, generosity, and forgiveness that mark me as one of His sheep.

Time for this sheep to do my best to reveal my faith in action, and not just these words, on this another day of the journey.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Who is This Man?

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Who is This Man? (CaD John 7) – Wayfarer

Thus the people were divided because of Jesus.
John 7:43 (NIV)

As I read the headlines, it appears to me that I live in a time when I hear many different things being stated as fact, and I am left to reason out what is true.

  • Should I truly still be afraid of COVID and its variants, even though I’ve had COVID and have also been vaccinated?
  • Is a biological male truly a female athlete?
  • Is climate change truly ushering in a soon-coming apocalypse?
  • Was I truly born a racist with no hope of change or redemption?
  • Is it truly possible for everything in life to be fair and equitable?

What a fascinating time to be walking this earthly journey.

As I mentioned at the outset of this chapter-a-day journey through John’s biography of Jesus, identity is a major theme that weaves its way through John’s writing and the stories he chooses to share from the voluminous number of stories he could have shared. I’ve had both my eyes and my heart looking for it as I read each chapter. And isn’t a timely theme for our current time when “identity” is such a hot topic?

In yesterday’s chapter, Jesus pointedly called out the motives of the crowds that were following Him around the shores of Galilee. It was such a harsh rebuke that the crowds dispersed and even The Twelve were tempted to walk away.

In today’s chapter, John shares what a lightning rod Jesus had become. The national religious festival called the Feast of Tabernacles is set to kick off in Jerusalem. Everyone is expecting Jesus to make a grand entrance. Instead, He travels to Jerusalem secretly and arrives late.

Everyone is asking, “Who is Jesus?” Here are some of the takes:

The religious leaders see Jesus as a threat to their power and control over the masses. They have a price on Jesus’ head (vs. 1), they send the Temple Police to arrest Him (vs. 32), and they hold fast to their view of Jesus as, truly, a deceiver and illegitimate prophet (vss. 47-52).

Jesus’ siblings think Jesus is out of His mind, and they mockingly urge Jesus to leave Galilee where He’s wildly popular and relatively safe and go to Judea where He’s likely to get arrested by the religious leaders and stoned for being a heretic (vss. 3-5)

The crowds have all sorts of opinions:

  • Jesus is a “good man.” (vs. 12)
  • Jesus is a “deceiver.” (vs. 12)
  • Jesus is amazing, knowing so much for being a rural schmuck who wasn’t trained formally in the formal, ivy league, educational institutions of Jerusalem. (vs. 15)
  • Jesus is “demon possessed.” (vs. 20)
  • Jesus might be the Messiah. (vss. 25-26)
  • Jesus can’t be the Messiah if He came from Nazareth. (vs. 27)
  • Jesus should be seized and arrested for what He is saying (vs. 30)
  • Jesus is the Messiah. Who else could perform these miracles? (vs. 31)
  • Jesus is the Prophet spoken of in Deuteronomy 18:15. (vs. 40)
  • Jesus is the Messiah. (vs. 41)
  • Jesus can’t be the Messiah because, according to the prophets, the Messiah will be from Bethlehem. (vs. 42)

The temple guards don’t have a clue who Jesus is, but they were so impressed with what Jesus had to say that they disobeyed orders and refused to do so. (vss. 45-47)

John, one of Jesus’ inner-circle and a primary source witness to the events, tells me at the beginning of the book that Jesus is truly the resurrected Messiah and incarnate Christ. Still, John makes it clear that along the way Jesus’ miracles and teaching created tremendous division.

In the quiet this morning, I find my heart contemplating two things.

First, John’s story compels me as a reader to decide for myself who Jesus is. He even provides me with ten or so popular, contemporary opinions from which to choose. As for me, I made my decision forty years ago. Have I questioned my choice? Yes. In fact, I’m questioning it anew in the quiet this morning. Have I changed my mind? Never. My spiritual journey of forty years has deepened my faith.

Second, I find myself asking, “If I truly believe, what I say I believe, how should that inform my thoughts, actions, words, and tasks on this 20,185th day of my earthly journey?”

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Birth, and Identity

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Birth, and Identity (CaD John 3) – Wayfarer

“Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
John 3:3 (NIV)

A prestigious and knowledgable religious leader named Nicodemus makes a clandestine visit to Jesus in the dark of night. He wants to question this young rabbi from fly-over country who everyone is talking about.

Jesus begins his conversation with the well-educated religious man with a very simple metaphor: you need to experience a re-birth. You need to be born one more time.

Nick didn’t understand.

Jesus then simply explained that, just as there is a birth of our physical bodies, there is also a birth of Spirit.

Born…again.

One of the things that I’ve observed along my life journey is that words or phrases themselves are metaphors. The the printed squiggly lines I read in a book or the little pixelated lines I are read on a laptop screen are just that: squiggly lines. Consider this series of lines: c-a-t. Those lines are not literally a furry, purring pet. Yet we understand the lines to represent letters, which represent sounds which, when put together represent words, to which we have attached a certain meaning. And, the meaning of words and phrases can be layered. One word can have a myriad of numbered definitions in the dictionary.

My friend, Dave, wrote his doctoral dissertation on the “dictionary wars” in European history when different institutional power brokers were seeking to ensure that their dictionary became the authoritative one. They sought to control the meaning of words. It was understood by these power brokers of the world that those who control the language (and, by extension, the message) will ultimately control the masses.

I observe this in our current culture, as well. Words and terms are being used in political discourse, but they mean different things to the individuals using them and listening to them on opposite sides of the political divide. We’re having arguments with the same words to which we’ve attached different meanings. I’m also witnessing that words and terms that have always meant one thing to me have been redefined by groups within the culture. New words and terms are also being created and used within one sub-culture that are completely unknown by other sub-cultures. It’s no wonder we’re having trouble communicating with one another.

Words and terms also matter in this theme of identity that I see threaded throughout John’s biography of Jesus. I use words and terms to both identify myself to others, and to identify other individuals and groups. Those words and terms are layered with the meaning I’ve attached to the term, as well as my opinions, my experiences, and my emotions. The term “Born again Christian” is layered with different meanings to different people.

Which is why I almost chose to ignore it when I read today’s chapter. Writing about the metaphor “born again” feels a bit like walking into a mine field blind-folded. Yet, I found the simple metaphor Jesus shared with Nicodemus to resonate deeply within me. Jesus wasn’t talking about politics, religion, or a particular demographic therein.

I believe that Jesus was using the transformational experience of physical birth to describe an equally transformational spiritual experience to which He was leading people. I’ve experienced it. I’ve known many others who have experienced it. It’s at once simple and yet hard to explain. I imagine it’s not unlike Jeff Bezos or Sir Richard Branson trying to describe the experience of weightlessness to my earthbound mind that has never experienced it.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself trying to strip away all of the layers of meaning and emotion that our culture attaches to the term “born again.” Like U2 trying to steal Helter Skelter back from what Charles Manson made of it, I want to get back to a simple word picture Jesus gave to a spiritually blind religious man.

“You were born physically, Nick. But there’s also a Spirit birth that you have yet to experience. Don’t you see? You’re spiritually trapped in the womb of your earthbound humanity. Once you’ve experience your Spirit birth, you’ll be an infant with an entirely new Life open to you to experience. A new identity. Old things will pass away. Entirely new things will come to you.”

Pursuit of Happiness

Pursuit of Happiness #27

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Today’s post pursuit of happiness post is actually a response to the message I heard in worship yesterday. It was a great reminder that we so often live each day wading through guilt and/or toxic shame which oozes into our souls from any number of sources. Followers of Jesus are so quick to believe the lies and critical blurts others throw our way, and so slow to believe the truth of our identity in Christ.

Many years ago I did a little personal study in which I listed out a host of affirmations about my identity in Christ from God’s message. I still pull this out and read through the list on occasion. It’s like spiritual chiropractic for me, straightening out my self-talk and helping me shed some of the twisted, shame based thoughts I whisper to myself. I post it here hoping that it might be an encouragement to others.

I urge you to find a quiet place and read through this list out loud, starting each line with “I am…” Your heart will feel lighter by the time you get to the end of the list!

I am…

fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139)
made in the likeness of God (James 3:9)
worth more than many sparrows (Mt. 10:31; Lk 12:7)
God’s workmanship (Eph 2:10)
chosen (I Peter 1:2; 2:9)
crucified with Christ; Christ lives in me (Gal 2:20)
brought near to God by the blood of Christ (Eph 2:13)
made holy through the body of Christ once for all (Heb 10:10)
saved by God’s grace (Eph 2:5,8)
delivered from death to life (Rom 6:13)
forgiven – my sins remembered no more (I Jhn 2:12; Heb 10:17)
purified from all unrighteousness (I Jhn 1:9)
clean (Jhn 15:3; Jhn 13:10)
of those who believe and are saved (Heb 10:39)
in Christ (Jhn 14:20)
born anew (I Peter 1:23)
justified through faith (Rom 5:1)
set free from sin (Rom 6:18, 22)
no longer under supervision of the law (Gal 3:25)
released from the law (Rom 7:6)
healed (I Peter 2:24)
given fullness in Christ (Col 2:10)
in him who is true (I Jhn 5:20)
raised up with Christ and seated in heavenly realms (Eph 2:6; Col 3:1)
blessed (I Peter 2:9)
receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken (Heb 12:28)
son/daughter of God (Gal 3:26)
an heir of God (Gal 4:6; I Jhn 3:2; Rom 8:17)
son/daughter of light (I Th 5:5)
a member of God’s household (Eph 2:19)
a citizen of heaven (Eph 2:19)
a branch (Jhn 15:5)
a friend of God (Jhn 15:14)
God’s field (I Cor 3:9)
God’s building (I Cor 3:9)
God’s temple (I Cor 3:17; 2 Cor 6:16)
God’s house (Hebrews 3:6)
the body of Christ (I Cor 12:27)
one with other believers (Gal 3:28)
a member of one body (Eph 4:25)
of a people belonging to God (I Peter 2:9)
called (Jude 1:1)
God’s fellow worker (I Cor 3:9)
of a royal priesthood (I Peter 2:9)
witness (Mt 24:48; I Thess 2:10)
competent as a minister (2 Cor 3:6)
led by the Spirit of God (Gal 5:18)
a letter from Christ (2 Cor 3:3)
the aroma of Christ (2 Cor 2:15)
Christ’s ambassador (2 Cor 5:20)
the light of the world (Mt 5:14; Eph 5:8)
the salt of the earth (Mt 5:13)
more than a conqueror (Rom 8:37)
being renewed day by day (2 Cor 4:16)
enriched in every way (I Cor 1:5)
given a trust (I Cor 4:2)
looking for a city that is to come (Hebrews 13:14)

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