I've been reading this book called "Jesus + Nothing = Everything" by Tullian Tchividjian for a while..like I think I started it during the summer time, but it's so good! Just written in a way it takes a while to get through. But anyways, I'm trying to finish it before I go back to school and it's just really blowing me away! It's pretty much all fundamental stuff, but it's the fundamental things I constantly have to be reminded about, I've found. As I was reading today, there was a part about the fact that if you're a Christian you're identity is found in Christ and what that means for us. It was too powerful for me not to share and too long to put anywhere else! So here it is! I hope you resonate with this truth in the same way I have!
If you're a Christian, here's the good news: who you really are has nothing to do with you -- how much you can accomplish, who you can become, your behavior (good or bad), your strengths, your weaknesses, your sordid past, your family background, your education, your looks, and so on. Your identity is firmly anchored in Christ's accomplishment, not yours; his strength, not yours; his performance, not yours; his victory, not yours. Your identity is steadfastly established in his substitution, not in your sin.
Now you can spend your life giving up your place for others instead of guarding it from others, because your identity is in Christ, not in your place. Now you can spend your energy going to the back instead of getting to the front, because your identity is in Christ, not in your position. You can also spend your life giving, not taking, because your identity is in Christ, not in your possesssions. All this is our new identity -- all because of Christ's finished work declared to us in the gospel.
Paul speaks of our "having been buried with him [with Christ] in baptism," in which we "were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead" (Col. 2:12). Our old identity -- the things that previously "made us" -- has been put to death. Our new identity is "in Christ." We've been raised with Christ to walk "in newness of life" -- no longer needed to depend on the "old things" to make us who we are.