How Does Identity in Christ Make a Difference?

How does my identity in Christ make a difference? My identity in Christ promotes intimacy with Christ and therefore compels my industry for Christ. When I experience an intimate identity with Christ, passion compels me to share Christ. I am motivated by the love of Christ.

My Identity Is Directly Linked to a Relationship

My identity is directly linked to a relationship. Whomever I place as the authority in my life tells me who I am. So, who is the authority in your life? Is it your peer group? Perhaps it is your boss? Maybe a spiritual leader gives you your identity? Or does your spouse establish your identity?

Whoever lords over me defines me. Therefore, whomever I seek to please has power over my life. As a result, those I seek acceptance from control the direction of my life. Identity is intricately linked with my dependent relationships.

However, God seeks His lost creation. “Where are you?” His deep desire is to be the Lord who defines me. He offers His redemptive power to complete me. And when I am united with Christ, I am accepted as His child.

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins.

Ephesians 1:3–7 NLT

God’s Love Secures My Identity

Paul tells us that because of his identity as a beloved child of God, God’s love synchronizes his life.

Either way, Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.

2 Corinthians 5:14–15 NLT

God is love. I am loved by God. Therefore, I am a beloved child of God if I have accepted His forgiveness of my sins. How I see God determines how I see myself and, therefore, how I relate to Him.

My Identity Needs to Be in Christ

Although we previously stated that identity is how I view myself, my identity should be based on how God sees me. Without God as my authority who defines me, I am left floundering for a stable source. But my unchanging God offers His validating love, significance, and security to solidify my identity.

My identity needs to be established in a relationship with Christ. Jesus is the only one who has the authority to define me.

But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.

John 1:12 NLT

If I look to someone other than Christ to define me, I give them God’s qualities they cannot fulfill.

Apart from God’s divine presence, I lack the grace that enables me to be alive in Christ. His breath of life animates my soul to be one with Him.

Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.

Genesis 2:7 CSB

When I am one with Him, I can see as He sees. We are of one heart and mind, united and in communion as He designed us to be. His deep desire is for His creation to be in a relationship with Him.

And although you were previously alienated and hostile in attitude, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His body of flesh through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach—if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven.

Colossians 1:21–23 NASB

Therefore, when I find Christ relevant, I see myself as God sees me. The only way that I find Christ relevant is to believe the truth about Jesus. The truth of Jesus resolves my internal conflicts so that I can see myself as God sees me. Grace overflows with God’s power to live as His truth transforms me. Therefore, I have everything I need to live a godly life, including an established identity.

His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

2 Peter 1:3 CSB

I Can Be Firmly Established in My Identity

When Christ is central in my life, I can be firmly established in my identity. He sets my focus. He directs my paths. And when I don’t know who I am, He calls me by my name.

Now this is what the Lord says—
the one who created you, Jacob,
and the one who formed you, Israel—
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by your name; you are mine.”

Isaiah 43:1 CSB

He is the validating source of my life. His love for me establishes my worth, my significance, and my security. I am valued by God. Therefore, I am of worth to God. He died to be in a relationship with me. But in return, He asks that there be no other rival in my life. He is to be the focal point of my existence.

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Colossians 3:1–4 CSB

These verses demonstrate a transformation from an old identity to a new identity based on a relationship with Jesus. My life is hidden in Christ and kept securely for all eternity. He is to be the meaning of my life – my reason for living, my resource for thriving, and my resolution to crisis.

And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Colossians 3:17 CSB

For Christ to be central, I must find Him relevant to every area of my life. Finding Christ relevant means understanding how He makes a demonstratable difference in my life. What truth about Jesus helps me to understand who I am?

My Identity in Christ Compels My Industry for Christ

How does my identity in Christ make a difference? My identity in Christ promotes intimacy with Christ and therefore compels my industry for Christ. When I experience an intimate identity with Christ, passion compels me to share Christ. I am motivated by the love of Christ. The fruit of the Spirit will grow in my life. As a result, my spiritual gifts will naturally be observed and expressed. I also have the ability to become fluent in the One Anothers of Scripture. No longer must I merely perform religious obligations. Now the person of Christ is alive in me.

Insight Journal

• Who is God?
• How do I relate to God?
• Who is Jesus to me?
• The reason I serve Christ is because . . .

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Excerpts from iProcess by J. Kirk & Melanie D. Lewis © 2023. Download your copy today!

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