Identity - does your description of yourself and others match God's?

"The Lord would hunger, could starve, but would not change into another thing what His Father had made one thing." George MacDonald¹
I've read and listened to a lot of commentaries and sermons on the temptations in the wilderness² but I'd never heard the perspective that George MacDonald draws from the moment that Satan tempts Jesus to turn a stone into bread:
Jesus will not change the identity of something which the Father has already identified.
It was a stone and a stone it would remain.
In an age where truth is often viewed as subjective, identity has also been accepted as such. "You can be whoever you want to be" is often heard.
Now, of course we can grow, improve, develop and change in so many different ways, but there is a core to your identity that will never change and that includes who God has created you to be and who He has told you that you are.
I am a child of God - 1 John 3:2
I am beloved - Romans 1:7
I am forgiven, redeemed, sanctified and holy - Acts 13:39, 1 Peter 1:18, John 17:17, 1 Peter 1:16
I am chosen and accepted - Eph 1:4-6
I am free from the power of sin - 1 Peter 2:24
I am the righteousness of God - 2 Cor 5:21
I am an overcomer - Romans 8:9-11
I am a friend of God - John 15:15
And so much more, friends.
Personal Challenge
- How do you describe yourself to others? What do you speak over yourself? Who do you say and believe that you are? Now look at what God says about you. Does it line up?
- Now, how do you speak about others? Jesus died for the whole world and each person is deeply loved by Him³, whether or not they believe or follow after Him. Do the things we say, or maybe even more acutely, the spirit in which we talk about others line up with His love for them?
In a world full of people who don't know who they are, you can be fully confident in who God has created and declared you to be.
Live it out.
Show up.
Love always.
Practical note: If you want to remind yourself of these daily, google "Identity in Christ" images and print of a list that you can meditate on and/or declare over yourself every day.
1. UNSPOKEN SERMONS, First Series, The Temptation in the Wilderness
2. Matthew 4:1-11
3. John 3:16
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