Who Do You Believe

 14“Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
    Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
 … 16 You knew me before I was born.
    Every day of my life was recorded in your book …”
 Psalm 139:14,16 NLT

I used to lead a study that I usually began by asking, “Who are you?” I had the ladies write down three answers.  If I asked you that question, who would you say you are?

If you answered a lawyer, teacher or bank employee, that is what you do, your occupation, not who you are.  You may have answered an American, or a mother and wife.  Or maybe you thought something like, “overweight, outgoing, procrastinator”. Consciously, or unconsciously, we put others, and allow other people to put us, in convenient boxes with socially acceptable labels.  Those labels come with expectations and limitations. Who we think we are will determine how we act and who we become.

Experts generally believe that the most important, defining labels, are accepted by us by the age of five.  However, for followers of Jesus, we exchange the world’s expectations and labels for who our heavenly Father says we are in his word, the Bible.  2 Corinthians 5:17 says “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” When we choose Jesus as our Savior and Lord we begin the process of exchanging the world’s lies for God’s truth.  We step out of the darkness into the light.

Through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross our sins are forgiven and we have access to all the promises and good gifts are heavenly Father desires for us to enjoy.  By faith, in other words, by who God says we are, not by what we do, we begin the journey of transformation from the inside out.  Our identity is no longer determined by what others think or say, but by the truth of who God, our designer and Creator, made us to become. Who better for us to believe and let determine who we become, then the one who made us?

When the Father looks at you, he sees the real you, his beautiful, dearly loved daughter.  You are no longer alone, hopeless and helpless.  You are deeply loved by the Father, adopted into his family with all its benefits. You are valued because Jesus died for you, and God has an important plan and purpose for your life.

You are not abandoned and unprotected.  The Father has promised never to leave nor abandon you.  He has assigned his mighty angels to watch over and minister to you as his child.  The Holy Spirit lives in you, and he is greater than anything the devil might plan against you.

All of that good news is true of us, whether we believe it, or not.  We have a choice, then, to live into the light of our inheritance, or continue to be stuck in the darkness and disintegration of our true destiny. What lie are you believing today, that needs to be exchanged for the truth that will set you free to live in the grace and love of Christ?

Dear friends, be blessed as you choose to actively seek the truth of who you are now as a child of the heavenly Father and a friend and co-worker of Christ.  Be alert to the strategies of the devil to keep you living isolated in the darkness.  Be bold to fight for the freedom Jesus died for you to enjoy.  Be blessed as you choose to share each step into the light with someone still in the darkness.  And rejoice! Amen.

Mary Sumner ~ July 16, 2024