EEC Blog

As we begin another New Year we need to remember who we are and where our identity is as we set off to face 2009.  Will we, will I, remember the reality of my new identity – Christ in me!

Paul began his letter in Ephesians: “To the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus.”  Yes they had their struggles in Ephesus, their problems, their pain, their wounds.  There were fears and sin but they also had their joy.  Notice Paul does not pin labels on them to identify the people by their problems or by the truth they emphasise.  

He writes to the saints and calls them faithful in Christ Jesus and again he says in 1 Corinthians 1:2 “To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ — their Lord and ours.”  It is important that we understand our identity.  We are not our problems only, we are not our wounds only, and we are not our sins only.  But our identity is in Christ Jesus and in what God has made right and is making right in us.  As it says in Philippians 1:6: “being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

The author Larry Crabb has said “our longing to be loved at our worst, to enter into a safe relationship of intimacy with Jesus is far more central to whom we are than our failures and fears, but that is difficult to see.  We feel our guilt and pain more than we feel our eager passion to be loved and to remember that we are in Christ.  We identify ourselves more by what is wrong with us than by what God has made right.  So we are not our problems, we are not our wounds, we are not our sins, but we are persons of radical worth and unrevealed beauty.  If we face ourselves fully, we will be broken by what we see.  By the selfishness and fear and rage and lust that cover our spiritual beauty like tarnish on silver.  But silver is there and something brilliant and intact gleams through the stain of our brokenness.” (Taken from “The Safest Place on Earth” by Larry Crabb)  

The tarnish is not our identity but the silver - Christ the work of God is our life.  Singer Graham Kendrick in his song says “Rejoice, Rejoice, Christ is in you, the hope of glory in our hearts.  He lives, He lives, His breath is in you. Arise.”

So what do you see?  Do you see the tarnish in your life, what you are not?  Have you put a label on yourself?  I can’t!  I am fearful!  I have problems!  Do you say to yourself I need to change this or that before I come to Him, or do you remember – I am in Christ, that my identity is in Him.  

As the hymn writer Charlotte Elliot said “Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind, sight, riches, healing of the mind.  Yea all I need in thee to find, O Lamb of God, I come, I come.   Just as I am Thou wilt receive, wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve because they promise I believe.  O Lamb of God, I come, I come.”

We know we are people who cannot live properly without Him.  We should come to Him and discern our true identity and pray for the Holy Spirit to work in our lives and trust and depend on God our Father.  

Are we trying to fix ourselves or pretend we are better than we are or will we remember that we are in Christ, yes broken, but alive in Christ!  Will we come to Him and discern and pray for the Holy Spirit, at work in our life, to trust and depend on God.  

As we journey with God this New Year let us remember that God is at work in us.  Remember also you are in Christ and pray that God will enable us to see our brothers and sisters without labels but in Christ also.  

So let us then celebrate the on-going work of God in our lives, praying that God will give us eyes to see Him complete his good work in us.

Vincent.