Completely New, by God’s Design

Have you ever thought about how much we let our past and our failures define us? Or maybe it’s what others say about us? Too often, even our own bad days get a vote in who we believe we are. Stuck in all that noise, it gets easy to lose sight of something simpler. Your identity was never meant to be defined by those things. Instead, your real identity is rooted in who God says you are. Our problem is that we confuse our identity with everything else, and it’s time we quiet those voices down.

There’s an important moment told in 2 Samuel chapter 11. It happened in the spring of the year, the time when all kings went out to battle. This was tradition. David was king of Isreal, but instead of going out with his army, he stayed home. He was feeling himself. He had begun to believe something about himself that was rooted in fact but not truth. His track record of defeating giants was not the reason he was king. He was king only because God had chosen him. He had truly forgotten who he was

This can happen to any of us. I believe it happens more than we like to admit. Life throws things at us, we listen to the wrong voices, we read the headlines, and somewhere along the way, we not only forget who we are but whose we are. When we forget who we belong to, we start operating out of our strength instead of the authority God gave us.

Here are three truths I want you to remember.

• You are exactly who He says you are. You were created in His image, He has a plan and purpose for you, you are always more than your successes or failures.
• Your identity is connected to your destiny. Regardless of what you are going through, you were built for this moment. It’s not over, He is not finished, your destiny is in His hands.
• You are an overcomer. You can overcome anything that the enemy throws at you. You and God will always win.

There was a man that came through our program years ago that reminds me of these truths. He had lost relationship with his kids over the years because of his addiction and time in jail. Once he submitted to the will of God for his life, he was in awe of his new life in Christ. He finished the program, found his dream job, and joined a great church. Life as he stated was great, the best he had ever experienced. He even started building back relationships with his children. They were all adults, but he thought he had to make up for lost time. He tried to buy his way into their affection, spending everything he had trying to make up for years lost. When that didn’t work, it nearly broke him again. He was trying to live up to a false identity that was fueled by regret, fear and shame. He had a new identity in Christ, but he was trying to fix the old man’s identity. I told him, “The old man is dead you are new in Christ Jesus.” His job today is to walk in love and imitate God; Christlikeness. God is the restorer. You must let God be God and let Him do the restoring.

As a young boy I learned a lesson about identity and restoration by watching my grandfather. See He couldn’t read or write. He signed his name with an X. But when he was a teenager, he got saved while working in a cotton field in York, South Carolina. His first Sunday at church, somebody handed him a Bible. He was determined to know God for himself, so every day he would sit on the edge of his bed and ask God to open this book to him. He taught himself to read that one book. He became a Baptist preacher who couldn’t read anything else in the world but his Bible. He could preach the Word for hours without notes, reciting entire chapters. I grew up watching this. Although he never met my children or his great grandchildren I know we are benefiting from his faithfulness, we are a part of his inheritance. See, God redeems not just people but time. Not one moment is wasted in Christ.

Redemption doesn’t mean pretending the things that we regret never happened. It means trusting that God is bigger than them. 2 Corinthians 5:17 states, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, old things have passed away, and all things have become new.” Not a better version of who you used to be, but someone completely new. It’s more like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, not just an improved caterpillar. What emerges looks so completely different. There’s no way to recognize it from what it was before. That’s how you can see yourself in Christ. You aren’t merely a cleaned-up version of the old you. You are completely new.

John 1:12 says that to all who receive Him, who believe in His name, He gives the right to become children of God. Then, Romans 8:1 says there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You can, and should, stop condemning yourself for something in your past that the cross has already paid for. Before God ever said, “Let there be light,” He had already chosen you. You didn’t earn that. It was freely given.

Friend, take a moment and look in the mirror. You can stop measuring yourself by your worst mistakes, because that’s not the real you. Instead, see yourself the way God sees you, chosen and redeemed and made completely new. He isn’t surprised by where you’re standing right now, and His plan for you is the only one that matters.