Secure at Last: The Power of Gospel Identity

Anxious much? Find yourself being defensive around others? Constantly comparing yourself to others’ personalities and achievements? Endlessly seeking to please others and live up to expectations? Hit a hard slump after failing at a task? These are very common emotions we all experience throughout our lives and while they may seem isolated from one another at first, at the heart of them all is the same root problem. When we seek to find our identity in things like approval or acceptance or achievement, which all fluctuate over time, we are bound to be insecure and chasing an ever-changing goal. If we are to live in full security and acceptance of who we are, we need to root our identity in truth that doesn’t change. The good news is, we all have access to this knowledge; the question is whether we will live in it or if we will keep chasing our security in the winds of fleeting temporal accomplishments.

What is Gospel Identity?
Honestly, this question deserves an entire blog post of its own. But for now, we will keep it short and simple so that we can move on to some application of it.

If you ask the average person on the street, “Who are you?”, you will get all kinds of different answers. Some will list their occupations (“I’m a plumber”). Some will list their relationship to others (“I’m a mother” or “I’m single” or “I am 1 of 3 children”). Some will mention their proudest achievements (“I’m an Olympian”). Some will list their religion, or their race, or their sexual orientation, or their political party, or their hobbies, or any other number of people groups they choose to identify with at the time. The answers are endless, and subject to change over a person’s life as well as based on who they are answering the question for.

Unlike the answers listed above, those who answer the question, “Who am I?” from their Gospel identity, won’t have the same endless, fluctuating answers because, simply-put, Gospel identity is who God has declared you to be, not who you choose to identify as. Gospel identity is received, not achieved. It’s is a truth declared about you, not a title or achievement you have earned. And that Gospel identity is the same for every person  who is in Christ. (Of course there are slight variations; I’m a daughter of the King, not a son of the King, for example.) But for the most part, every person brought into the Kingdom of God shares the same identity and can answer the question the same way.


On the surface, these may seem like simple truths, spiritual truths that don’t really affect the everyday life. But you’d be entirely wrong to assume that. For the rest of this article, I intend to demonstrate how having an identity firmly rooted in the Gospel has incredible impacts to our daily life, bringing freedom and peace to behave confidently as we interact with the physical world around us.
 
Personal Application
We all struggle with insecurity. To deny that is to lie to yourself. It comes in many different forms, but it’s always there. Sometimes we are insecure about the way we look, sometimes it’s about the skills or abilities we have, other times we are insecure about our personality. At the end of the day, we just want to “fit in” and “be accepted”. Who we want to fit in with or be accepted by is completely different for every person, but belonging is something we all long for. When we see a group we wish to belong to, the natural response we have is to compare ourselves to that group. “How do I compare to them? What do they have/do that I don’t? How do I need to present myself in order to be accepted?” The results of this comparison (even if it’s subconscious), are any number of the following emotions:

• Feeling invaluable or inadequate
• Shame
• Overcompensation
• Over-exertion/performance
• Perfectionism
• Loneliness
• “Faking it”/inauthenticity
• Feeling unwelcome
• People-pleasing
• Unwillingness to say no
• Conflict avoidance
• Guilt

This certainly isn’t an exhaustive list, but it demonstrates the kinds of pressures and behaviors produced by living out of an identity that is defined by achievements and ever-changing people groups.

However, if we are able to remember who God has made us to be, the truths He has declared about us, it strips those negative emotions and behaviors of all of their power. Suddenly, we don’t have to “measure up” to fit in to a particular group, because we are already accepted and loved exactly as we are by our Creator and we know that that is enough. We know that we don’t have to achieve top tier performance in our work or our hobbies or any area of life because our value and belongingness aren’t tied to our performance; we have already been brought in by Christ’s perfect performance in His life, death and resurrection. There’s no performing left to do to earn our place. We no longer have to worry about shame or guilt; there is no condemnation in Christ! We no longer have to worry about people-pleasing; our Father is pleased with us as we are today because of Christ. We no longer have to “fake it”; we recognize that God, our Creator, has made us the way that we are, with our specific talents and abilities, for a reason and we can be content to live in that.

Gospel identity is the power which enables us to be content, to stop chasing ever-changing goals, and to rest in who we have been made to be. To live in our gospel identity, rather than in our self-proclaimed identity, is to be freed and liberated to be content and to live all of life as worship. It has profound impacts on our self-talk and self-image and infinite applications to our personal lives.
 
Purposeful Application
While our personal lives are radically changed by living out of our Gospel identity, that’s not the only part of our lives that is transformed. Not only is our sense of self affected, but our sense of purpose is also altered.

Purpose is a big question we all ask ourselves at least once in our lifetime. “What am I here for? What am I going to do with my life? How should I spend my time?” Often times, those who live out of a self-proclaimed identity often struggle with performance. “In order to be the CEO of this company some day, I need to do X,Y and Z”. And then if they don’t achieve X, they are lost and have to re-evaluate their purpose. Another way this plays out is becoming crippled by decision making. “Because I want to be CEO someday, I have to figure out a path to get there, and I don’t know how to do that so I’m afraid to make any decision that might not lead me there.” Living out of a self-proclaimed identity can often lead to analysis paralysis or even laziness as a result of the analysis paralysis.

However, living out of our Gospel identity brings clarity and direction, no matter what situation we find ourselves in. We know we have been created to glorify God. So in the exact situation I am in today, I can glorify God. I can have joy in my current job, I can work hard to succeed and advance. If I become CEO someday, I can praise and honor Him in my words and my work and if I fail at the X of X,Y, and Z that was supposed to lead me to being CEO, I can be content knowing that I’m already loved and accepted and I don’t need to achieve anything to be so (this goes back to that personal application above). When I’m seeking to move forward, but struggling to pick a direction, I am freed to pick one and see if it works out. It’s ok if I make a mistake or a “wrong decision” because my worth doesn’t come from my success or my achievements, it comes from Him who has already declared me worthy and loved. When I don’t feel like I belong amongst a group of people, though they might see me as an “outsider”, I know that I belong there because I have been sent on purpose for a purpose. I am an ambassador to the Gospel. That brings a confidence that squelches all insecurities. I may not be “welcome”, but I belong here.

Conclusion
We could spend all day going through countless examples of how Gospel identity frees us to be content and joyful in every circumstance, how it relieves the pressures of having to perform and achieve and fit in by our own efforts. But I think I’ve given you enough here to demonstrate the point and to begin to think through your own scenarios, And that’s exactly what I’m going to encourage you to do. Think about the various areas of your life; your work, your school, your home life, your church life. Do you feel content and free, empowered and thriving? Or do you feel pressure, inadequacy, stress, anxiety? If it’s the latter, I encourage you to think about where you are finding your identity. Is it in being a good mom, or a straight A student, or the “good Christian man”? Try to identify where the pressure is coming from and then look to God’s Word and what He says about you in light of that. Is that a pressure He has put on you or that you have put on yourself? Seek to remind yourself of what is true about who you are in Christ and be liberated to worship in all of your life!