Knowing who you are?   

A few years ago, I started to think deeply about who I was. I wanted to understand who God had created me to be. Not who I had come to believe I was from what everyone had told me about myself or from my discoveries. I wanted to know the truth about who I was through the eye of the creator, God. It was clear to me that the only way to do this was with the help of Jesus.

Having a God-given knowledge of who you are is important for two reasons. Firstly, it gives you confidence in who you are and secondly, it gives you the confidence to pursue your purpose in life. As I began to ask God about who I was, I began to understand that our identity goes beyond the physical attributes that we know about ourselves. It involves that part of us that is hidden beyond the flesh, the soul and the spirit. I believe that a part of who we are is wrapped in a part of who God is. The Bible tells us in Genesis 1:27 that God created man in His own image.

What this means is that certain aspects of God’s characteristics have also been imbibed in each of us. Therefore, in understanding who we are, we must ask the Holy Spirit to bring aspects of ourselves that we never knew existed into light. The truth about who you are must align with God’s original intention for man at the time of creation. Every person should also understand themselves as being a child of God.

Today, many Christians struggle because they don’t know who they are. I struggled with this too. I had a limited understanding of who I was and the little I knew about myself included many failures. This knowledge was not good enough to carry me through the ups and downs of life. So from a young age, the lack of a good understanding of who I was became the foundation that the enemy used as a gateway to instil the lies of not being good enough and not being loved to me.

As a believer, who we are and what we believe about ourselves cannot be separated from our identity in Christ Jesus. John 3:16 tells us that for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  Ephesians 2:5 also tells us that but God, who is great in mercy, because of His great love, with which He loves us. From these passages, we know that any thought that says you are not loved is a lie of the enemy.

So, everything we believe about ourselves must be backed up by what the word of God says about us, and we must let go of anything that has become a part of our identities through the lies of the enemy. For those that have been feeling that they are not good. You don’t get to earn your good through your works. Jesus Christ died for our sins and believing in Him means our sins have been forgiven. See 2 Corinthians 5:21 which says for He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God. So, we have been made right before God because of the atoning blood of Jesus that has washed us clean.