Who are you? What defines you? These are questions that haunt us. People spend years trying to figure out who they are. If I said the word identity what would you think of? What comes to mind when you think of your identity? Are you defined by the career or title you hold? Are you defined by the person you are with? Your financial status? A loss of a loved one? What others think of you? Your current situation? Where you’re at in life? If you think you are defined by any of those things, I want to challenge you to forget about them here and now.

You are not defined by any of these things. These are all temporary things. You don’t have an imprint on your forehead that says what you’ve done in your past. Your past doesn’t define you. And that’s the beauty of the cross. The cross says that you are wiped clean of all of your dirty, messy past. The cross says you are being refined and redefined. The cross says you are made new. Jesus has conquered your sins. He has conquered the grave.

If I asked you, “who are you?” How would you describe yourself? How would others describe you? Messy? Crazy? Undignified? In a mess you didn’t want? Unworthy? Losing at life? Maybe you think of yourself higher than you ought to. Without the Lord, you are those things. You are messy. You are unworthy. Heck, even as Christians, we are unworthy of the cross, but God deems us worthy through His sacrificial love and adoption. We are called the sons and daughters of the King. How crazy is that? You are made worthy because of His sacrifice.

What do you want to be? More successful? Compassionate? Loved? Wise? Responsible? Rich? Courageous? Holy? Honest? Are you more concerned with what’s in your back pocket, essentially than what you’re living out? Having Jesus in your heart, believing in Him, that’s not enough. Actively seek Him. Better your relationship with Him. On our own, we can never be good enough. Without Christ, you will never be worthy. You will never be pure. Strive to be found in Christ.

Do you wanna know who you are? Do you want to find yourself? He has made you alive (Ephesians 2:4-5). You have been chosen and adopted. He desires a relationship with you. He desires to be your Father (1:4-5). You are His workmanship. You are His masterpiece (2:10). He calls us out of our mess, He calls us out of our brokenness. He calls us into His family. You are no longer a foreigner (2:19). We are servants of the Gospel (3:7) We can approach Him with FREEDOM and CONFIDENCE (3:12). Live a life worthy of the calling that you have received (4:1). Live a life worthy of the life that He has given you. We are called to be imitators of God (5:1). There is victory in the cross. You have won the race. You don’t have to keep running anymore (1 Chronicles 29:11). Don’t live your life bound by bitterness or anger at yourself or God or anyone else… be free. You are called to be free. (Ephesians 4:31). How crazy is that, that the most sovereign God of all. The strongest being who ever existed, calls us to be free of any guilt or anger or fear or chains that we face. He calls us to be His children. You are called to be alive. “You are altogether beautiful, my darling, and there is no flaw in you.” (Song of Solomon 4:7). How beautiful is that? How beautiful is it that the One Who knows the dirtiest and deepest parts of our soul calls us beautiful and desires us. “You have searched me, LORD, and you know me.” (Psalm 139:1). He knows us. Yet He desires to love us. Think of the dirtiest person you can. Do you want to love him and hug him and do you desire a relationship with that person? No. You’d say “Take a shower and get out of my face.” God knows the dirtiest parts of our heart. He knows our struggles. He knows our weaknesses. He knows our sin. Yet He desires to meet us in our mess and in our dirtiness to make us pure.

Remind yourself daily who you are in Christ.

Maybe you question why God would bother fixing your problems? Maybe because your problem is so insignificant, and He has so many better things to do. No problem is too insignificant for Him.

Maybe you think your problem is too big for God to handle. Or that you can handle it on your own. Do you doubt God’s ability to refine you and use your problems?

He still works miracles.

When God showed me who I was in Him, it was a struggle of "You are better than the situation you are currently in" and "You can get out of this." I didn't believe that. I thought I was stuck. I thought that I didn't deserve better. I thought that I was destined to be who I was then. I didn't see that I was worthy of better things. I didn't see my worth in Christ. I sat in my miserable circumstance because I thought that it wouldn't get better. I didn't think that I would ever find better things. But here I am now, telling you that I am a child of the King, I am worth so much more than the things that bind me. I don't have to fear losing people. I don't have to lie to myself anymore. I can be free because Christ has made me free. It did get so much better. I can finally be happy with my situation because He brought me out of it.

Be fearless. Don’t be afraid of who you are. Don’t run from God’s plan for your life.

Don’t try to save yourself. It won’t work.

He will bring you to a point of surrender.

Sometimes it feels like your whole world is shaken and you are breaking inside.

Matthew 16:24-26 “Take up your cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. ”

That is His beckoning call.

Leave behind who you used to be and become who He has called you to be.

You can’t do it on your own.

You can try to find yourself.

But you won’t.

You can’t find yourself because you are made in the image of the Creator.

Ultimately, you don’t find yourself, you find God.

Don’t be scared that you won’t like God’s plan because in the end when you “find yourself” or get where you’re going- the pursuit for happiness will come to a close. But just because you got out of one rainstorm, doesn’t mean it’s over. It will come again. You will have seasons of questioning still. You will have doubt because you’re human. We doubt God. We doubt His abilities. We doubt His plan.

“For you were once darkness but now you are the light in the Lord.” (Ephesians 5:8). You are the light in the Lord. That’s what you are called to be. A servant for the gospel. You are called to be His masterpiece. You are called to be free. He has called you out of darkness and into His marvelous light. You are light IN THE LORD. This is not your light. It is His. You are His ambassador. You are HIS. You don’t find the will of God on your own. You find it in His Word. You can’t find happiness until the Lord is in the middle of whatever it is you’re facing. You are free of the shackles that bind you. You are chosen. You are free. You are so magnificently and beautifully loved.

So be free.

Be who you arein Christ.

You’re no longer a slave to fear.