Our Identity; Grace;

Our identity.
When we think of this many images come to mind of course. Your identity can often be found by looking at your birth certificate... Showing a picture, your name, something like that. But does it say anything about who you are...?


1 Peter: 2 reads;
'But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.'


It's hard to swallow right? When I look in the mirror I see my reflection and that's not one bit a royal priest I see a broken person I look in the mirror and I admit to myself that God's calling me to be a better follower of him to be a better sister, student, daughter.


It's shown me the things.. The things that I've done wrong. And if you're like me and you look in the mirror and you see the bruises, cuts, scars and the things that we don't think so highly of ourselves.. Boy! Our identity sure gets blurred doesn't it? It's blurred in this: we can't see that we're chosen and we're royal priesthood. We see brokenness... And so the question is: what do we do with that image that we see in our earthly life? How do we handle it?  How do we wipe it away? And the fact is, you and I can't. It's only through Christ who does that. Our identities are secure in Christ. Through God's grace. Grace. When I think of grace I think of it as how it was taught to me in my confirmation classes. Grace: God's riches at Christ's expense. We do not deserve to go to heaven. We deserve hell. But we receive grace, it's our free gift.
The sins we commit may sometimes seem absolutely terrible. But what Jesus did on the cross was meant to take what is unforgivable and make it forgivable. That's Jesus' grace.

When we look at our identity and think that we are broken.. We also think we have a whole lifetime to try to fix what we've done wrong. In reality we can't fix it. Only Christ can. It's not about us. It's all about him. And if we question if our identity truly belongs in him look what it says in scripture about who you are. You are : fearfully and wonderfully made, precious to God, cared about since your conception, God's child, chosen by Jesus, loved dearly by God, free from condemnation, a temple, a dwelling place of God's spirit. You are redeemed and forgiven for all your sins. You are his. Sin has made our identities blurry. We stopped seeing ourselves as his. We started seeing ourselves as broken.


And so I end with the question I started with: who do you think you are? And my answer to this is a simple response: Well, I am his. Called to be his. To live for him so I can shine in darkness. So that others can see the light that is flowing through me, the light of Christ.