I AM SO HAPPY WITH WHO I AM
From all eternity, God knew me and loved me and planned for me.
Ephesians 1:4-6 For he [God] chose us in him [Christ] before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will - to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
Jeremiah 31:3 The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.”
Psalm 139:16b All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
He planned for me to be perfect and to live in a perfect world. But I was born into an imperfect world. I got hurt and I found ways to protect myself. I also sinned and found ways to hide my shame. But when Jesus came into my life, all that changed.
Ezekiel 36:26-27 [God’s promise in the Old Testament about how Jesus would change my life] “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”
2 Corinthians 5:17 [The New Testament statement of what happened to me because of Jesus] Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
God, from all eternity, planned for me to be holy and blameless. When I received Jesus, I became holy and blameless as a gift.
Romans 5:17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
Hebrews 10:14 … because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
I have a new identity. I am God’s perfect child, and He is wild about me. He loves me as much as He loves Jesus.
John 17:23b [Jesus in prayer] “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
And Jesus loves me as much as the Father loves Him.
John 15:9a [Jesus speaking] “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.”
So … if I’m so wonderful, why do I struggle with sin? Don’t I still have that old sin nature that I have to fight against? No. That old nature is dead and gone.
Romans 6:6-7 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin - because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
If I’m so free, why do I do wrong things?
Romans 7:20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
Doesn’t “sin living in me” mean I have a sin nature? No. In my inner being, I am just fine. Sin is at work, but it exists in the members of my body, not in my core identity.
Romans 7:22-23 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.
So if in my core identity, I am perfect and filled with Christ and I love God’s ways, why do I lose the battle with sin so often? Is sin stronger than who I am in Christ? No. I lose the battle with sin when I choose to fight it with the law of my mind. The law of my mind is me deciding what is right and wrong and doing my best to do right - which is living under law - which is living according to the knowledge of good and evil - which is living the way Satan first suggested to Adam and Eve and which brings death. However, if I live out of my identity in Christ, I do not sin.
Galatians 5:16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.
Before I came to know Christ, I sinned and I got hurt. I learned to cover my shame and my pain. I learned to present a good front. I hid behind that front. I have lived with this “false self” for so long that I can’t tell the false me from the real me that God created and loves. The false self protects me. When life is not safe, I don’t always run to Jesus. Sometimes I run to my false self. I put up a false front to cover how I really feel. This is unhealthy. But Jesus died to remove this as well as my sin. He died to remove everything that’s wrong with me.
Isaiah 53:3-5 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
Every time I use my false self to cover up what’s wrong with me and to pretend that I am in much better shape than I really am, I live like an unbeliever, refusing to bring all my shame to Jesus for healing. I live more like Adam and Eve, trying to cover myself as best I can, and hiding from others and from God. The false self acts like a covering. But God has provided a better covering for me:
Galatians 3:26-27 You are all sons [and daughters] of God through faith in Christ Jesus,
27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
So God says:
Ephesians 4:22-24 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
How do I do this? First, I believe the truth.
Romans 6:11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
And I live according to who God says I am.
Proverbs 23:7a (KJV) For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he …
I am acceptable because Christ has accepted me.
Romans 15:7 Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.
I am lovable because God loves me with all the love He has within Him.
John 17:23b [Jesus speaking to God the Father] “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
John 15:9a [Jesus talking to His disciples] “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.”
I am friends with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. How special does that make me!
John 15:15 [Jesus talking to His disciples] “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 don’t have to apologize for being who I am and what I am. Christ has fully justified me.
Romans 3:24 … and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
I have nothing to be ashamed of.
Romans 8:1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus …
There is nothing lacking in me; I am not deficient in any way.
Colossians 2:9-10a (KJV) For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him …
I can never fail.
Philippians 1:6 … being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Romans 8:37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
I am the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
Matthew 5:13-14 [Jesus speaking] “You are the salt of the earth … You are the light of the world.
The world is not worthy of me.
Hebrews 11:38a [speaking of the lowliest of Jesus’ disciples] … the world was not worthy of them.
I am God’s sacred temple.
1 Corinthians 3:16-17 Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple.
I am God’s personal ambassador.
2 Corinthians 5:20a We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.
I stop listening to the tapes in my head that say I am not this good, and I replace those messages about who I am with God’s truth.
Ephesians 4:22-24 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
I listen only to God for the answer to the question “Who am I?” because only He knows me well enough to answer that question correctly. And He likes what He sees when He looks at me. The Scriptures given above are just a few of many about the new creations we are in Christ. This is an identity to be proud of. This is cause for rejoicing.