Class 5 Christian Spirituality - Our New Identity

hi there I am Timothy Moore and I get to be your professor in Christian spirituality this is unit five and we're going to be talking about our new identity in Christ uh when we talk about identity as a concept what we're talking about is a person's sense of self or personal worth when a person has a sense of self and some idea of their personal worth uh we're talking about identity the sources of identity the things the the building blocks per se of identity are um I express them in terms of our voices choices or

Christ and so each of us have um voices from our past even if it's earlier in the day it's still in our past but as we were raised as children there voices there's parental voices there the voices of our siblings the voices of our friends friends uh the voices of our teachers uh people that are our classmates people we went to school with college with employers over time these voices build and we put a certain amount of value or weight in those voices and we determine our sense of self and our sense of selfworth or

personal worth based on voices or uh choices and the the choices that we make um good or bad the achievements in our lives all of those have to do with our our personal choices and we can develop our sense of self and personal worth from either those voices or the personal choices that we make or or we can allow Christ and the words of the New Testament actually give us a new identity so a new sense of self and value based on the teachings of Jesus Christ and so our personal concept of identity is the

single greatest factor in what we choose to avoid in life and what we achieve in life it is a huge factor in what motivates us or demotivates us um as human beings and uh there's a story um I read it first in Neil Anderson Dr Neil Anderson's book victory over the darkness um he has a story about a college um kid a a a freshman in college who was ju he all that he did was uh eat junk food and chase girls that's that's all he wanted to focus on and there there was one girl

in particular that um that he was interested in and when he heard she was getting out of class or was going to be somewhere he would Sprint all the way across campus just to get a glimpse of this girl or uh have a chance maybe of meeting this girl and if he wasn't chasing after the girl he was going to Taco Bell or going to get ice cream or eating a banana split whatever it was all junk food and this girl and um as he was running across the campus the coach of the track team

uh saw him sprinting and thought that's that young man is really fast he's he's so fast that I probably need to recruit him for the track team the track and field team and so um one day the the coach saw him running and he kind of cut him off and and the young man was agitated did but the coach said hey I I've noticed that you're really fast and uh and the and the young guy was just like yeah yeah whatever I'm trying to get to this this place or that and the coach said I'm

not sure you understand what I'm trying to say like you have a gift you were very fast and I think you could um potentially get a scholarship if you if you come out for for the track and Fe team um like this could pave your way like this could um this could take care of your education like you have that kind of gift and so um this young guy thought about it and the next day he he went where the coach told him to go he went down to the track he met with the coach

long story shorter he got he he got on the team and he immediately started winning meets he would either place first Sometimes second sometimes third but he's always in the top three and the coach said you know if you will make just a few adjustments like if you if you'll eat food for the nourishment in the food in instead of uh living to eat if you will eat to live and you you will get what your body needs and if you'll spend a little more time in strength training in the gym he said I I

think you could potentially even in this first year make it to the national championship and so the young man did that he changed his eating habits he spent time in the gym uh in strength training and eventually he made it to the NCAA National Championships in track and field he ran the 200 meter uh he 200 meter run and when he was warming up for his run at the national Championship guess who came and tried to talk to him it's the girl that he chased months ago and she wouldn't give him the time of day

but now he's caught her attention and she's trying to talk to him while he's warming up for his race and when she did that it was a little bit aggravating to him because he didn't want his attention to be focused on her when he's getting ready to run in the national championship and so what he said to her was uh I've always thought you're beautiful I used to uh run across campus just to just so I could see you coming out of class he said but now's not the time he said I really have to

focus on this race and uh if you'll come and see me after the race um I would love to to take you out for dinner or a movie but right now we can't talk about it okay you're going to have to just give me some space to focus on on the race that I have to run that's a very different young man than before he he got on the the track team like all he could think about was that girl if she had spoken to him his heart would probably have melted he wouldn't have been

able to respond to to her uh but after he became something that's identity when you have a sense of self when you have a sense of your personal worth when you become something and you have an I am statement connected to that and so what he was able to say to her when she came to him and approached him is I am an athlete I I am getting ready to run this race and I don't need to be distracted right now and please talk to me afterwards so he his concept of himself as an athlete

I am an athlete I have something to do um these are identity statements and they radically change what you do and what you avoid and how you relate to people and relationships and the world and so um we really want to get into um our sense of identity our sense of self and our sense of personal value and worth and if we can allow Christ to reshape our identity then it will it has the potential to absolutely set us free from things that bind us things that blind us and help us achieve what the Lord

has planned for our lives uh because a a a sense of identity that that does not lean into what Christ says about us is always going to be our limiting factor it's going to be the choke point that keeps us from being who God wants us to be and doing what God wants us to do and that's why I said the personal concept of identity is the single greatest factor and what we avoid and what we achieve and so what I'd like for us to do right now is take uh just a few minutes to

listen to someone who helped me understand as a young man my identity in Christ and and grow to maturity in that so that I might uh avoid the things that hindered me and achieve the things that God had planned for me and that's Dr Timothy Keller let's see what he says about our identity in Christ what's identity it's a a sense of self and a sense of worth what makes you feel significant what makes you uh confident of your value and if you have a h a sense of self and a sense of worth we

say you've got a real identity it's an illusion to say that my identity comes from my inner feelings people say it all the time this is who I am you decide who you are Benjamin nent in an essay in the New York Times said this when good writing was my only goal in life I made the quality of my work the measure of my worth and then he said for this reason I wasn't able to read my own writing well I couldn't tell whether something I had just written was good or bad I needed it

for it to be good in in order to feel sane I lost the ability to cheerfully interrogate how much I liked what I had written to see what was actually on the page rather than what I would have liked to have seen or what I feared to see in other words when you make anything your identity when you make a uh a career your identity or a particular body your identity or a particular love relationship your identity those things stop being good things and they start to crush you you uh you you in other words

he wanted to write that's a good thing he should have written but when the writing was his identity he said I made the quality of my work the measure of my worth and I I couldn't I to feel sane I had to look at anything I wrote and said this is great so I I couldn't actually look at it realistically and I couldn't certainly hear criticism it's crushing it's absolutely crushing you know the place where CS Lewis and mayor Christianity says we're not really proud of having money we're proud of having more money than the

next person we're not really proud of being smart we're proud of being smarter uh if you are the best violinist in your little town in Texas and then you go to New York City and you get off at Penn Station and you realize the person who's playing the violin and begging and people are put throwing you know money in in the violin case is better than you and suddenly that High self-esteem you had CU you were the best violinist in your town goes down into the toilet why because ultimately any identity that's achieved rather than

received has to be excluding in other words you feel better because these other people aren't as good as you these other people aren't as enlightened as you these other people aren't as liberal as you these people aren't as conservative as you these people aren't as hardworking as you these people aren't as insightful as you that's how you feel good about yourself by looking at other people and just and trashing them and that's how it's going to work so what kind of identity do we need here's what we need you can't take yourself and bless yourself

and name yourself you need recognition you need somebody from outside to come in and speak to you I know we say no no no we don't need that of we're social beings we're relational beings we have to do that even when I see people online say I have done this and my family's rejected me but I know who I am and this is who I am and suddenly thousands of people on social media are cheering them they just got what they they didn't just say I have decided who I want to be no they have

a new set of cheerleaders they just they just took the old set of cheerleaders and just said forget it I want to be part of this set you have to have a word from outside somebody's got to name you and let me go a little further what kind of person should this be or what kind of people should this be well you need the love and you need the approval and you need the esteem of someone you esteem if you're going to have any self-esteem this person whoever it is should not be someone who could

ever let you down or disillusion you if you get your uh your selfworth from the academy or from the art world or from individuals or from a loved one or something like that what happens when they disillusion you which they might where do your selfworth go this also can't be a person who's fickle somebody who's up and down with you depending on how well you perform think about this if it's really true that the praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards that you only have only if you have the esteem of someone you esteem

will you have self-esteem only if you have the Adoration of someone who Ador you then to know that God loves you the lord of the universe loves you that would have to give you the most the most powerful basis for a stable identity possible and secondly is it based on your performance no if it's not based on your performance it's not only stable but you don't need to look down your nose that everybody else around you in other words the excluding aspect of your identity goes away so how do you get that you're adopted into

God's family that's a new identity right you are a citizen of Heaven Philippians 3:20 that's a new identity right you're United to Christ that's a new identity right but I got to say when I when I just talk to you about it like that in fact when I just talk to myself about it like that it's kind of abstract but Jesus doesn't name us simply by showing up and giving us a new name or saying you're mine he dies for us so you lose the excluding aspect of modern identity so you have something stable so

you have something coherent so you know who you are so you have an identity not achieved which is crushing but it but received how do you do that a you got to believe he died for you he says so I lay down my life of my sheep he doesn't just show up and give you a name he he dies for you it's got to go to your imagin ination it's got to be the aesthetic core of your life you've got to learn how when you're struggling with what the culture says about your identity because you're

not good-look enough you're not smart enough you're not having enough transformative sex you're not this you're not that you got to know how to pick pull out your identity in Christ and push it to the top of the deck and you do that generally through imagination I had a friend of mine some years ago that realized he was extraordinary upset about the fact that he went to the kind of schools and he had the kind of background and all of his colleagues had made a tremendous amount of money and had high status and he was

in a in a missionary Ministry job and didn't have that kind of status and he realized it was getting at him he realized he was actually he needed to put Jesus identity at the top of his deck as it were and he suddenly one day was reading in Philippians chapter 2 where it says in the Old King James though he was you know he was in the form of God he didn't count equality with God a thing to be grasped but he made himself of no reputation and it went to the man's heart and he

says Jesus Christ lost everything he was crucified outside the gate he made himself of no reputation he did that for me why in the world am I worried about my status and my reputation and he was freed see what he did was he took it to the center of his of his imagination not just here I believe it if you don't get it into your imagination and if you don't do it regularly through worship through thinking through applying it at the moment it doesn't go to the top and and you and you're you're back into

where everybody else is cultural captivity how are you getting through your imagination what Jesus Christ has done for you down to a naming level in your heart [Music] I hope you took some notes and and the words of Dr Keller uh sink deep and and inspire you to allow the scriptures to speak to your heart about your personal identity in Christ and so what I want to focus on right now is a key Bible passage 2 Corinthians 56- 21 and the Apostle Paul here says so we have stopped evaluating others and so we're talking about

value we're talking about worth we've stopped evaluating others from a human point of view at one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view how differently we know him now this means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person the old life is gone and the new life has begun and all this is a gift from God who brought us back to himself through Christ and God has given us this task of reconciling people to himself for God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself no longer counting

people's sins against them and he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation so we are Christ ambassadors and God is making his appeal through us we speak for Christ when we plead come back to God for God made Christ who never sinned to be the offering for our sin so that we could be made right with God through Christ and so there are there are two focal verses that I really want to hone in On In this passage of scripture verse 17 which says this means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new

person it's talking about a new identity that means you're not just um a a a result of the voices from your past you're not just a result of the choices that you've made your identity uh is contained in what Christ has achieved for you and what he declares about you and this declaration is you have become a new person because you belong to Christ you have to know that you belong to Christ how do you do that you give your life to Christ Lord Jesus you gave your life for me I'm believing in you I'm

putting faith in you and the best way I know how I'm giving my life to you and so when you give your life to Christ the Bible teaches you get a new identity you become a new person it says the old life is gone and a new life has begun you're not just a product of what's been done to you or what you've done you're not just a product of what's been said about you or even what you have said about yourself you are who Christ declares that you are and this other verse verse 21

says God made Christ who never sinned Jesus was perfect and holy it says he made him to be the offering for our sin so that we could be made right with God through Christ some of the other translations say so that we might become the very righteousness of God in fact most translations say that so these verses speak of of an identity in Christ that we do not achieve but rather receive and that's what I want to flesh out a little bit um Dr Keller said any identity that is achieved rather than received excludes others

it makes you feel better about yourself because you you um you're better than others in other words um if you uh if you're a great football player and you get your identity and worth in that um you absolutely have to exclude other people like I am better if I'm a wide receiver I'm better than all the other wide receivers and so you exclude wide receivers uh on the football team if you're a great soccer player um and you're a great midfielder then you have to exclude other midfielders and say I am better than those people

I have achieved more I have more athletic ability if you're if it's business if it's politics whatever you get your sense of self and value and selfworth through it's exclusionary it excludes other people and you have to be over them you have to be better than them you have to exclude them and the identity that we have in Christ this this is from um this lesser known Professor named Timothy Moore it says if we receive our identity from the achievements of Christ and the Declarations of God's word no one is excluded it's all Grace this

is from something I wrote about our identity in Christ and so um no one is excluded if our identity is not something we achieve but we receive by the grace of God through Jesus Christ I don't have to exclude anyone I don't have to believe that I am better intrinsically than anyone else or put anyone under me at all to have a sense of selfworth and value and identity and so that's why it's important uh that's why a kingdom perspective a Christ given perspective of identity um creates Unity it creates Harmony it's an expression of

love it doesn't exclude anyone and so we take our our concept of identity and our new identity in Christ and we allow it to shape our view of the entire New Testament and so it's a new way to view the Bible and and what I call this is Kingdom identity establishment and so you're going to see the New Testament The Words of Christ the explanation of the words of Christ by his his Apostles that's how we got the 27 books in the New Testament instead of it being a religious textbook instead of it being um

uh just something to to study or to have a spiritual exercise you're actually seeing it as the tool that God is using to shape Kingdom identity and and what I mean by that is the identity of God himself and your personal identity in Christ so as you read the Bible and spend time with God in his word devotionally what what happens is the identity of God is going to be shaped and your identity is going to be shaped according to the kingdom principles in God's word and you're and you absolutely get free because you see

how much God loves you the acceptance that you have uh in Christ and how his achievements benefit you and you don't have to strive for them you receive them as a gift of God's grace and then you live in that new identity and that identity determines what you avoid and what you achieve okay we're going to we're going to examine some scriptures that uh that deal with that and uh I I just call it an identity exercise so this is Kingdom identity establishment with the word of God seeing the New Testament as the way God's

going to establish his identity and reveal himself to you and your identity in Christ and so we're going to use the Bible to reshape our perceptions of God and S and that's and that really is spiritual formation it's discipleship it's it's growth in Christ the more spiritually mature we are the more we have allowed God's word to reshape how we think about him and how we think about ourselves give us that new identity and then shape the way that we interact with the world and so we're just going to take a few scriptures and do

that exercise so the first one is Ephesians chap 1 3-8 which says all praise to God the father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the Heavenly Realms because we're United with Christ even before he made the world God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ and this is what he wanted to do and it gave him great pleasure so we praise

God for the Glorious Grace he's poured out out on us who belong to his dear son he is so rich in kindness and Grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his son and forgave our sins he has showered his kindness on us along with all wisdom and understanding now what you don't know and what he doesn't know is that I have a technical director in this room named Trent Hendricks and he's videoing this so that you can see it and and learn and so what I'm going to do and instead of just

reading that because I I just read through that it could seem like a religious exercise uh it's always good to read scripture but unless we personalize it unless we apply I am statements and I have statements those are identity statements when we're when we're looking at the identity of God it it is God is and God has when we're looking at our own identity and letting the scripture shape it we we fill in these blanks I am blank I have blank and we fill those in with what the Bible is saying and so I'm just

going to do this for Trent you don't see Trent but uh Trent is sitting right there just to the right of the camera and so I'm going to I'm going to put Trent's name in here and we're going to read this again and Ephesians 13 all praise to God the father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed Trent with every spiritual blessing in the Heavenly Realms because Trent is united with Christ okay so we're personalizing it and then if Trent is reading this for himself and he's allowing God's word to do what it is

intended which is to shape our concept of God shape our concept of self our new identity then he can write down the I am statements and the I have statements and so just in in that verse um Trent can say I am blessed with every spiritual blessing in the Heavenly Realms I am United with Christ those are his I am statements in the very first verse and then verse four even before he made the world God loved Trent and chose Trent in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes and so God Trent

can say I am loved by God I am chosen by God in Christ to be holy and without fault in the eyes of God and so there's a couple more I am statements verse five God decided in advance to adopt Trent into his own family by bringing Trent to himself through Jesus Christ and so Trent can say I'm adopted by God because I belong to Christ I'm adopted by God I am in God's family and I have been brought to God through Jesus Christ and this is what he wanted to do the verse says and

it gave him great pleasure man God wants to adopt me that this is something that God wanted to do and God got great pleasure by adopting Trent into his family all right let's continue so we praise God for the Glorious Grace he he has poured out on Trent because Trent belongs to his dear son and so there's the I am statements um I have he can say I have the Glorious grace of God poured out out on me and I I am a Dear Son of God I am a child of God verse seven he

is so rich in kindness and Grace that he purchased Trent Freedom with the blood of his son and forgave Trent sins now at any time Trent you say hallelujah to any of this because uh these are incredible promises like trenin say I am purchased like my freedom is purchased with the blood of Jesus Christ my sins are forgiven because of Jesus Christ hallelujah hallelujah and verse eight he has showered his kindness on Trent along with all wisdom and understanding and so Trent can say I have the kindness of God sh powered on me and he

has given me I have wisdom and understanding from God he has wisdom and understanding from God because the Holy Spirit we're promised the Holy Spirit when we give our lives to Christ and the Holy Spirit is the empowering presence of God the directing intelligence of God that's in the holy spirit's in Trent and so there're these are all identity statements and they're all over the New Testament it's either telling us something that fills in the blank about God God is this I mean if we're looking at this passage God is gracious God is kind God

is forgiving God has purchased our freedom forgiven our sins we see characteristics of God and the identity of God is being established through his word to our hearts and not only that that he's reshaping our view of ourselves and our identity is something that that exists because Christ achieved it and God has declared it and and it's a reality now it's a reality whether you know it or not and if we don't know it and embrace it by faith then we will simply live according to the voices of our past the choices that we've made

what we've done what's been done to us and the world is broken there was a there was a moment where our identity was intact as human beings and that was in the Garden of Eden before the serpent Satan entered that Garden tempted Adam and Eve and and caused them to question what God had told them about their identity and so uh they fell and since the Garden of Eden and the fall that is recorded in Genesis chter 3 we have been born into a world that is that has an identity crisis human beings have an

identity crisis because we our identity is shaped by Voices and choices and not God and as we've seen in in studying the elements of the Gospel this world is not as God not as God God intended it to be it is broken and one piece of that Brokenness is our broken identity and so we have to let that broken identity be replaced by the Declarations of the New Testament the word of God the achievements of Jesus Christ and so let's let's keep going with this exercise it's fascinating it's absolutely fascinating um because uh so many

Christians talk negatively about themselves I've heard I've heard Christians I've been in leadership uh pastored my first church uh 34 years ago I came into my first pastor and for for over three decades I've listened to Believers people who've been in church for many many years who who received Christ decades prior saying I am worthless like I'm a I'm a a wor I I and they just talk bad about thems and they spiritualize it by by saying you know I'm just I don't know why God uh would even um have a positive thought toward me

I'm just a terrible terrible um individual and and they just go on and on about their negative self-image uh their negative broken identity and you start looking at the New Testament in terms of being God's method of shaping our identity and um and it's it's just uh surprising it's so surprising to me because it flies in the face of all the negativity in my own life and I'm sure in yours because we live in this broken world because all my identity is voices and choices out outside of this and then I read verses like this

Ephesians 2:10 that says we are God's Masterpiece he has created us a new in Christ Jesus so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago and so what I see from that in in terms of my identity is I'm God's Masterpiece that's true of you too if you belong to Christ and and the word for Masterpiece is the the Greek word poema where we get the word poetry and so you are something beautiful that God has created poema can be poetry it can be craftsmanship or Masterpiece uh this is New Living

Translation that rightly translates it Masterpiece and so it's true of you if you wake up in the morning and you you thank God for the day that he's given and thank him that that he has made you his masterpiece this is the word of the Lord secondly from that one verse I've been made new in Christ where God's Masterpiece he created us a new in Christ Jesus and so there's there's old stuff gone and and there's a new Timothy because of the work of Jesus Christ third thing I see in that verse is I have

good things that God planned for me to do long ago that's true of you too if you belong to Christ God has a plan for you he has good things that he has planned for you to do there's an impact in God's world that is assigned to you you're his Masterpiece you've been made new in Christ and he has good things planned for you to do what if you woke up in the morning and that's your first thought your first thought is God thank you for this day I'm with you and you're with with me

Jesus said we abide in him he's the vine we're the branches God thank you I am with you you're with me and I am your Masterpiece you've made me new in Christ and there are good things that you want me to do today help me to be attuned to your spirit so that I can do the things that you marked out for me that you planned for me to do it's another perspective it's it's a better perspective perspective right than voices and choices from the world determining your identity and and speaking into what you're to

avoid or achieve in life um in Sermon on the Mount Jesus said uh you are the salt of the earth now when I read that in terms of an identity statement uh it's like I'd never even read it before before I was looking at the New Testament as um as the method that God uses to shape our perspective of of him and our sense of self and worth um I just kind of skimmed over the top of that and I I had referred to Jesus as the light of the world um but Jesus refers to

us as the salt of the earth and the light of the world he said you are the salt of the earth but what good is salt if it's lost its flavor can you make it salty again and so I look at that as an identity statement and I say this rightly I am the salt of the earth because that's who Jesus says that I am and then verse 14 he says you are the light of the world like a city on a Hilltop that cannot be hidden and so I can rightly say I am the

light of the Earth so do you wake up that way do you wake up in the morning and say thank you Lord for this day and and uh thank you that I'm your Masterpiece I'm I'm totally new in Christ uh I know that you have things planned for me to do today and I am the salt of the earth and I am the light of the world and I'm sure grateful that you made me that is that how you start your day or do you wake up thinking about voices and choices Philippians 3:20 says we

are citizens of heaven where the Lord Jesus Christ lives and we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our savior he will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like our own if we see this as an identity passage we we can say I am a citizen of Heaven that's our identity declaration and I have a new body I will receive from Christ when I see him what an incredible promise identity statements are I am statements or I have statements Romans 51 and2 says therefore since we've been made right in

God's sight by faith we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ Our Lord has done for us because of our faith Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God's glory if I view this as an identity uh passage like I should I see things like I am made right with God and the reason I'm made right with God is because of what Jesus Christ Our Lord has done for us it I have peace with with God so I

am or I have I am right with God I have peace with God and remember what we said at the very beginning it's not what you what you do it's not your work that determines your worth in the kingdom it is the achievement of Christ alone and so that's an achievement statement right there we we are made right with God and we have peace peace with God because of what Christ has done what he has achieved for us and then thirdly I see I'm in a place of undeserved privilege it says because of our faith

Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege which is just an expression of the word Grace Grace means an undeserved privilege and we stand in that we stand in the place of undeserved privilege and in that place we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God's glory we will share God's glory this is a great and precious promise of God so contemplate the identity statements look for the identity statements wake up in the morning and thank God for this new identity that you have in Christ um there are lists of identity statements in

the New Testament you can you can just do a search uh a web search of my identity in Christ verses and there are lists of 50 there are lists of a hundred there there are um there are hundreds of verses in the New Testament that God intends to use to shape your identity in Christ start claiming those verses by faith and living out of the achievements of Jesus Christ on your behalf and make those statements biblically about yourself the I am and the I have statements I'm adopted by God I'm a Child of God I

am loved by God I have access to God I have peace with God I've been made right with God I have freedom in Christ I'm a new creature in Christ old things have passed away all things have become new I'm a citizen of Heaven make these declarations because the world which is in opposition to God is not going to stop talking there are always going to be voices that that say the opposite God's voice and God's word that's the the perspective that matters and we have to embrace it that's why it's important for us to

spend time with God in his word daily and say Lord shape my view of you and and give me your perspective of my identity that belongs to me not because I deserve it I stand in a place of undeserved privilege I stand in a place of Grace and I am benefiting from the achievements of Jesus Christ and I'm grateful I know I don't deserve it but you declare it and give me strength Grace and Faith to believe what you say about me so that that can determine what I do and what I don't do what

I avoid and what I achieve so that I can live out the good work that you gave me to do long ago Ephesians uh 2:10 so this is my prayer for you father God thank you that you have given us a new identity in the Lord Jesus Christ um that identity doesn't do us any good here on a daily basis unless we know what it is unless we embrace it by faith and that's why we need to spend time with you in your word letting the words of Christ sink deeply into our lives and be

like the oil running down into the gears that drive our Our lives our attitude our action our words so give us Grace for this father give us faith for this and give us the spiritual discipline to stay in your word and let your word be the source of our new identity in Christ in Jesus name I pray amen