Ok. It’s a new week. It’s halloween today as well. That spooky time of year where you realize winter is coming 😉 Perhaps the thought of summer going away is the spookiest part of it after all. But never-the-less, it’s a time of year when the world brings changes.
Not only is it halloween and the approach of winter, but time change is coming. The world has literally put in place a rule to control the way you live your life around the clock you supposedly own. The world is controlling you.
Too often, we also let the world control our identities.
We let the world tell us who we are supposed to be.
Think about that for a minute. You have been living as yourself your entire life, and yet others believe that they know you better than you do. The worse part of it is, it’s not even always those who know you a little who judge you, but it’s those who don’t know you at all that pronounce statements of identity on you.
When did the world become an expert on you? Oh wait, they aren’t. In fact, the world usually doesn’t care too much about you after all.
So let me ask you, what are the main ways that the world tries to define you?
Do they try to make judgments about you by the clothes you wear? Do they think they know you because of your music? What about this one? This is a classic. Do they think they know you because of what your job is? I hate that one.
You meet someone and they say, “So what do you do?” as if to find the code to your identity in your job.
Guess what, your job will never be your identity… EVER!
It will reflect a bit of your role in this world, but your identity doesn’t die when your body does. You bring your identity with you to Heaven. So why do we let a temporary residence tell us who we are. We must build our identity on Christ, and then on how He created us to live. This is an eternal identity.
So what can I do about it? Here are a few things that can help.
1. Realize that you are created in God’s image, not the worlds.
Has anyone ever looked at you and said that you have your fathers eyes, or mothers laugh? You know what I’m saying. Perhaps it’s some mannerism that you picked up from one of your parents. We’ve all seen that happen. Now let’s use that as a template for this point. You are made in God’s image. Guess what, you have His heart. But perhaps you just haven’t developed it yet. You have His mind. But perhaps you haven’t lived in it. This is awesome. You already have access to the power that created the world out of chaos for your own life. Use it. Build your identity on it.
2. You were not created for here.
God created you to be with Him for eternity. This life is a portion, but a small one at that. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying we can never feel good in our earthly life, in fact Jesus came that we can have life to the full. But when we live for this life, we will not be fulfilled unless we know it’s just a blink of our lives. We are built for eternity, even practically. Your identity is eternal, not temporal.
So practically, don’t build your identity on stuff you can’t bring to heaven.
FYI, this includes you nationality. (I’ll talk more about that one in the future… it’s a hot topic)
This Week
So this week, I want you to think about your identity with your eyes on eternity. When the world tries to define you , does it think of you eternally, or only what it can get out of you?
Great reminder! Thanks Brad!
Our authentic identity is all that is “in Him ” which is outside of this world. Our false identity as you state is labels etc that are from this world. It is a crazy stretch to consider roles we hold such as parent, spouse, job title etc as not of this world and not our true identity. We are so bound and focussed on the concept of time that it skews our idea of eternity and the reality we ate eternal beings. The journey to peel away the temporal to see the spiritual and eternal helps to focus our eyes on Spirit and Truth. Appreciate this week’s blog focus. It provides me with a place to track my thoughts as I walk thru this concept.
Awesome Randy. You think deep.
Gah auto correct. .. mid way should say,” ….and the reality we ARE eternal beings…” not that we ate eternal beings…
Well that’s a relief. :).