Linking with Five Minute Friday at The Gypsy Mama’s place, on the prompt

“Identity”

It was one of those “God-incidences:” I found it when I was putting together a study on First Peter for a woman’s Sunday school class. I don’t remember how. Just suddenly it was there. And oh, it fit like a glove on what I was seeing in the beginning of the great Epistle.

It was all about The Seven Snares of Worldliness. And the snare in each case was a false sense of identity.

Things like, I am…

what I do

what others perceive me to be

my self-sufficient capabilities

my religious accomplishments

And it explained and gave the effects of each snare (which are good clues to determine which lie(s) about your identity you most likely believe).

 

Then followed a list of scriptural antidotes.

But it didn’t give any Bible references.

Funny thing was, I didn’t need any. I had them sitting right in front of me, staring me in the face. In 1 Peter 1.

There I see my identity.

My identity lies in Christ.

I am who and what I am in Him.

I am a stranger in this land (the earth).

I am a child of God the Father.  He has begotten me again, to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

I am an heir, to an inheritance that can never perish, get spoiled, spotted, damaged, or diminished— reserved forever for me in heaven.

I, my essential person, myself, am kept by the power of God unto final deliverance in the final day.  

I am a sanctified one, that is, separated to be His own, made holy.

 

So I needn’t  worry about the thieves of false identity, like

paralysis of limbs or senses,

or fire or flood,

or deceived or whimsical changing of people’s perceptions or memories

What must I do to safeguard and maintain my identity? Simply live out what God’s given me and made me!

And by what means, what power? Peter answers that one, too. As I read his introductory words again, I see all the doing is done by and through God: the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.

An identity created, re-begotten, sanctified and kept forever, that nothing and no one can ever steal from me.

*****