Identity

by Willie Keys

Who do you identify with in how you live your life? Maybe you have a role model: your parents, a favorite teacher, an athlete or someone you believe has made a great impact on you.

I believe that God should be the one we identify with during our lifetime. It took me many years to realize the importance of establishing an identity with God. I am still learning that he has a plan for me while I’m on the journey of life. Each day we travel together, there are teaching moments of love, trust, discipline and self-assessments. Sometimes he is quiet while observing me to see if I understand his ultimate goal for me.

Identifying with God lets me learn more about myself to grow spiritually. But more than that, to learn more about him. As a believer, I have to work daily to focus on God, and continue to nurture my desire and maintain my identity with him. I truly can’t comprehend why God loves me so much. I know in my heart I am not worthy of his gigantic love he showers on me. I believe his love for his children can only be captured in the following Bibles verses:

Romans 8:37-39 
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Here are a few facts about God that make it easy for me to identify with him:   

God the Creator:
We are created and designed by our God; he took special interest in creating us in his image. With that said, we are all different, even identical twins. We are not a product of an assembly line like automobiles. We are not afterthoughts or mistakes. We were purposely created in the image of God.

Genesis 1:26-28
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

I am a Chosen one:
God selected us to be his own: So we are God’s chosen ones.

Ephesians 1:3-4
Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ. For he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love. 

I am Redeemed:
We have been redeemed (Jesus’ vicarious death was an atonement for our sins. He paid the ransom, releasing Christians from the bondage of sin and death. So we are wanted and loved by him.)

Romans 5:8-11 (NIV)
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

God’s Grace:
The word grace in the Bible refers to the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God.      

John 1:14-16 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given.

Gods Mercy:
God’s mercy means his pity, compassion and kindness toward people. His mercy shows up in the believer’s life at salvation, and then God continues to show mercy in forgiveness. Mercy triumphs over judgment but refusing God’s mercy is disastrous.

Ephesians 2:4-5 
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.

Micah 7:18-19
“Who is a God like You, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in mercy. He will again have compassion on us, and will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.” 

Proverbs 3:3-4.
Let not mercy and truth forsake you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart, and so find favor and high esteem in the sight of God and man.” 

There are two worlds battling inside of us during our lifetime. One is evil and hatred, the other is love and hope. Which will win? The one you feed and nurture. If you choose to feed and nurture evil and hatred, then destruction will be your reward. But if you choose to feed and nurture love and hope, for God and one another, than eternity with God will be your reward.  

Author Bio
My name is Willie Keys, and I serve as the Senior Adult Minister at Council Road. For the first 47 years of my life, I only existed in this world. I knew of God, but I had never known him. In December 1999, I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. That decision has been the best one of my life. God is transforming my life to this day. I have come to the realization that it’s not about me, but all about God. The ultimate conclusion is that I am a work in progress. God continues to mold me every day of my life. My future is secure because l have eternity with God.