The Purpose Series | Who Are You? :: Learning Your Identity in Christ

If you saw a person who was utterly confident, unwavering in their beliefs, and capable of succeeding at everything they set their mind to do, would you think that they had no idea who they were? Most likely the answer is no. It’s very rare for a person to have these qualities without having a strong sense of self. Knowing who you are and whose you are can not only help you to find your purpose, but can actually lead you to succeed in more areas of your life than normal. Maybe you’re in a place where you don’t understand why you could never succeed at anything. Maybe you’re wondering why you aren’t where you want to be in life. The answer has a lot to do with the fact that you have no idea who you are, who you belong to, and therefore have no idea what the purpose and plan is for your life. In short, you have no direction at all and without direction you will never move to the place where you want to end up at in life.

“18 Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. ”

Proverbs 29: 18(KJV)

This means that if there is no plan given to a person they will perish. Without direction even an arrow won’t properly hit a target. So why do we think we can wander aimlessly in life and win the lottery in life at the same time. Do you think that every person who became a multimillionaire dollar business owner just sat in their room and stared at the television all day? Do you think that every person who went off to do amazing things just stumbled upon those things without actually doing anything? Most great things in life don’t just fall into people’s laps and most people’s purposes don’t happen without planning. God is a very organized God. He is a God of order and therefore is heavy into planning. Although everyone on Earth is not called to the same heights or depths as each other, each person has been given responsibilities that God gives them the opportunity to fulfill while on Earth.

The contrary to wandering aimlessly in life is when we decide to come up with our own plans without consulting God. There is a very worldly mantra that goes around often that encourages others to create their own destiny if they are not happy or ‘recreate themselves’. I remember when I was much younger, I spoke to God about these things and His response was, ‘How can you recreate something you never created in the first place? A lot of humans put themselves on My throne when it comes to life.’ God is the creator, the director, and the head honcho of the entire universe.

These sayings promote the opposite of putting God in control of our destiny. The problem with our plans and us taking things into our own hands is not that God doesn’t encourage us to have creative thinking and freedom to move towards our goals, but moreso that we must learn to trust in His overall plans for our lives because at the end of the day, God is King. I say this phrase a lot in my social media post and what this simply means is that it doesn’t matter who wants to stop God’s plans and what God is doing, He will still do what He wants to do. This is why you will never see me working against God’s plan for anyone or anything in life. People fear demons, but God is a lot more frightening than a demon, if you’re playing on the opposite team.

“The LORD frustrates the plans of the nations

and thwarts all their schemes.

11But the LORD’s plans stand firm forever;

his intentions can never be shaken.”

Psalm 33: 10-11(NLT)

So how do we become the person who is confident, unwavering, and is capable of succeeding at all they set their hands to do? How do we learn our identity in Christ? A lot of Christians talk about this, but what does it really look like? The first thing you need to do to learn who you are, is to learn who created you. If I were to look at a product that had no instructions, no previously related design, and no one around who could explain the purpose of the product to me, I would probably look up who the manufacturer was. When you know what company produced the product and what they are about, it’s easy to understand their overall design for the product. An example of this would be Apple PC’s vs Windows PC’s. A lot of people might be scratching their heads wondering, “They’re both the same things right?” However, if you research the creators of each of these products, you will learn, while they both have similar functions each of the creators had a different purpose for each item. Apple is designed for the creative and eccentric minded individuals, while Window’s is made for basic user needs. Don’t get me started on Unix/Linux OS.

The point is that without the instructions and directions from the creator, the manual of our life—the Word of God, we will not be able to fully understand what our purpose should look like fully. There are many examples in the Bible of people who didn’t fully understand who they were, and we see that the effects of this misunderstanding was fear of moving forward with things that God was speaking for them to do. A huge example of this was Moses. God called Him out, but in His uncertainty of His identity, especially since he was isolated from others like him for so long, made him present God with a list of excuses as to why he couldn’t do it, why he wasn’t called, and why he shouldn’t do what God spoke for him to do.

When we know what God has called us to be, we can operate in doing the call with less fear and more confidence. We also won’t be motivated by the desire to prove ourselves to others or competition and comparison to one another. Especially in the social media age, we often find ourselves comparing a desiring things that God might not have even called us to. I often see a lot of people pursuing one call to pursue selfish things in life, when they could clearly easily get everything they desired eventually if they actually pursued what God spoke. For instance, if your desire was to obtain wealth so your family would never struggle again, why would you pursue something that will make you little to no money when God called you to own your own company? When you know where and what God has called you to you will not miss out on anything that He has for you whether it be friends, a spouse, wealth, or anything He desires you to obtain on Earth to help the body of Christ.