How to Discover Your Identity in Christ
There’s so many places you can put your identity, but only one is a firm foundation that you can peacefully rest upon.
If you place your identity in anything other than Christ, your identity will be shaken and satan will toss you around like a rag doll.
Discovering and understanding your identity in Christ can be a journey and a process.
Why?
Because a lot of us have placed our identity in all the wrong things that are not congruent with who God says that we are.
Here are 7 keys to discover your identity in Christ:
1. See yourself how God sees you
God has the proper lens to see you.
God knows you better than anyone.
God knows the deepest crevices of your heart and the intricacies of your mind.
God made you unique and special.
We can’t always see ourself how other people see us. This includes friends, parents, bosses, coaches, and teachers.
These people can help show us if they have a godly perspective, but they are not the final confirmation.
It is only God who can show us who we truly are by His Spirit through His scriptures.
13 For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
14 I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. (Psalm 139:13-14)
In Judges chapter 6, the Angel of the Lord appears to Gideon and says to him, “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!”
The Angel calls him a ‘mighty man of valor’.
While this is happening Gideon is threshing wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites.
This isn’t where wheat is typically threshed. Winepresses were underground, but wheat was suppose to be threshed above ground.
The reason why Gideon is threshing wheat underground is because he’s living in fear from the Midianites.
During this process of Gideon’s internal fear God calls him a mighty man of valor and tells Gideon by his hand he will deliver God’s people from the Midianites.
We need to see ourself according to how God sees us, not according to our internal fears and self-doubts.
2. Know what God’s Word says about who you are and marinate in it
The most important voice is God’s voice.
You know what other people have said about who you are your whole life, but do you know what God says about you?
Do you know the blessings God has laid upon you?
Do you know how much joy God had when He made you?
You must know what God says about you in His Word.
1 Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. 2 Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. (1 John 3:1-2)
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace (Ephesians 1:3-7)
26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:26)
12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12-13)
3. Understand how the blood on the cross defines your worth
I know you’ve been told salvation is free, but salvation is not free. It’s just free for you.
Salvation was bought at a price, the highest price that could ever be paid.
The blood of the Christ on the cross was paid for your everlasting life.
God thinks you’re to die for.
God thinks you’re worth the blood of His one and only Son.
This is the price that defines your worth.
You are more valuable than all the riches in the world.
You are defined by the blood of Jesus given for you on the cross.
And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1)
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:4-6)
2 And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. (Ephesians 5:2)
12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. (Colossians 2:12)
3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. (Ephesians 3:3-4)
7 Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. (Galatians 4:7)
4. Disconnect from placing your worth and identity in the world
Place your worth and identity in Christ and His blood, not in this world.
How do you know where you place your worth and identity?
Well where is your pride?
What are you most proud of?
Who do you say you are when people ask you?
A child of God… or an entrepreneur, a real estate investor, a football player, an influencer, a YouTuber, ect.
Your achievements, career, lifestyle, relationships, who you’re associated with, or what you do is not who you are.
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. (1 John 2:15-16)
3 “You shall have no other gods before Me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, (Exodus 20:3-4)
5. Disconnect your identity from your trauma
What has happened to you is not who you are.
The abuse you’ve received is not you who are.
You are not an orphan, a victim, an addict, etc.
You are redeemed and made new.
New means unused. Brand new. Born again, a new creation in Christ.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
10 and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. (Colossians 2:10)
8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. (Ephesians 5:8)
6. Your identity is not your title, ministry gift, calling or purpose
Ministry gifts, spiritual gifts, calling, and purpose come after you know your identity in Christ, not before.
Your pastor title is not who you are.
You may operate in the prophetic, but you’re much more than a prophet or an evangelist.
Ministers who get their ministry title confused with their identity get lost in pride and the lusts of this world.
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)
7. According to your faith, let it be so.
This process can happen immediately, but it often happens overtime.
You’ve placed your identity in all the wrong things for so long, therefore it takes time to see yourself how God sees you.
You must believe you are who God says you are, not who this world or who the devil says you are.
Continue to meditate on your identity in Christ and let God show you who you truly are.
