Find your God given identity

Your are uniquely created by God and for God. When he created you he put a piece of himself inside of you. That alone shows how valuable you are. Beyond that God has a lot of positive things to say about you, who you are and what you can do. You are a master piece created with unique gifts, talents and characteristics and with a unique purpose that only you can fulfill here on earth. In reality I believe we already know this but still many people, especially women, live with a wrong picture of themselves where they don’t believe any good can come from their lives. Why is it like this? That question doesn’t have an easy answer but I am convinced that one thing that adds to this wrong notion about ourselves is that we build our self image on what other people think and say, what our society says, what our experiences and our mistakes say when we ought to build our self image and identity on what God says.

Self image is our opinion or picture of ourselves, while finding your God given identity is about getting hold on God’s opinion and picture of us. Everything changes when we start to look at ourselves with the eyes of God. God sees so much more in you than what other people see. In Moses other people saw a murderer but God saw a deliverer and leader for the Israel’s people. When others looked at Abraham they saw an old and childless man while God saw a father to many people. Ester was in other people’s eyes only an orphan when God had chosen her to save the entire Jewish people. In David others, even his own family, only saw a simple shepherd but God anointed him to be a king. I could continue with person after person in the Bible but I think you have understood my point. There is so much more in you than what other people see.

How do we get hold of God’s opinion of us? The answer is that when you and I start to look into the word of God we are changed, because the word of God is living and powerful (Hebr 4:12). Our lower thoughts about ourselves disappear and the one God created you to be appear. A God given identity is not built up by anything you do but when you realize who you already are in God. James 1:25 says: “But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free…”. When we fill ourselves with the truth it makes us free, free to dare to be ourselves. When you find your God given identity our answers to the questions “Who am I?” and “Where do I come from?” changes. Usually our answer to these questions are what we work with or maybe what we like to do in our spare time and that we come from a certain city or country. These answers are not wrong but if we have our identity in what we work with what happens then if we looses our job, get sick or burnt out that we may not be able to work? If we have our identity in the country or family we come from what happens if we meet people who does not approve of our country or doesn’t have any family?

Let us together find out in the word of God who God says we are and where we come from. What God says can be trusted and our lives can be built on it no matter who we meet and what we go through. God says, first of all, in Genesis 1:26 that we are created to his image. Wow, that truth alone is enough to raise our thoughts about ourselves. You are not a cell that has developed and the monkeys are not your ancestors. You have been created by God. He is good, loving and creative and your are created in his image. 1 John 3:1 continues with saying that you are a child of God. No matter how your biological family looks like, you now belong to God’s family. Regardless if your parents wanted you or not, in Psalm 139:16 God says that “his eyes saw your substance, being yet unformed. And in My book they all were written, The days fashioned for you, When as yet there were none of them”. To God your birth was well planned and he has a wonderful plan with your life. There are so many wonderful truths in the word of God that answers the questions “Who you are” and “Where you come from” that all can be summoned with that you are created by God and for God.

To find your God given identity and comfortably be the person God created you to be has many advantages. First of all you stop comparing yourself with others. When you realize what lane God has called you to run in you will no longer focus your energy to look on all the other runners in the other lanes but you will put one foot in front of the other and focus on your own lane. Secondly your performance anxiety disappear. You will no longer have need to perform to feel valuable. We are called to do things for (or with God) but what we do can never be from the perspective that we need to perform that God or other people will love us. Thirdly we stop to seek the approval of other people. Some people never have enough approval and confirmation but are constantly seeking it from everybody and everything. Today we can see a lot of approval seeking through the different social media sites we have. Some are constantly crying out “See me, hear me, confirm me”! Naturally we need each other’s encouragement and affirmation but we can not build our identity on others confirmation. God’s confirmation and approval is enough. Another thing that happens when we find our God given identity is that we don’t care so much about what other people say and think. I can tell you that even if you do everything right some people will still think it’s wrong. Therefore we can not live our lives accordingly to what other people think and say. When we realize how much God loves us and that we are created by him and for him the words of other people looses their importance. The last thing I want to mention, even that there of course are more advantages, is that you will not be easily hurt. I usually say that some people have so big toes that no matter what you do you step on them. When you know who you are in God most words and actions that were send to hurt you just runs off you with no harm done. Just imagine how wonderful that mean words no longer have an effect on you because you know what God says about you and that is all that matters.

Your true identity lies not in what other people say, your success or your failures, your childhood, the place you come from, your education or profession ex. You find your true identity in what God says!

You are who God says you are, have what God says you have and can do what God says you can do!