Labels

In the past, many of us have identified ourselves by the names people called us or by the labels they put on us.  God has good news for us today as we seek to live well and enjoy this day with Him and others. 

The foundation of who we truly are, and living well out of that secure place in our hearts is based on what God says about us and this is what God says: 

I have called you by name; you are mine. You are precious to me. You are honored, and I love you.  

Isaiah 43:1,4b

At times we may have identified ourselves with the ethnic origin of our biological parents, the family in which we were raised, the country or town in which we live or lived, the schools we attended, the church and organizations we belonged to, the friends we made along the way, the work we were involved in, our relationship to our spouse, our relationship to our children etc. etc.  So many ways we can look at who we are.

But none of these truly explain the depth and beautiful complexity of the persons we are.  We can only do that as we identify ourselves as God intends.   Many of us are familiar with these beautiful words:

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.

Psalm 139:13-14

God knows us and sees us as the masterpiece He created.  We are created in His image.  As we trust in Jesus for forgiveness from our sins we become beloved children of God, freed from sin and made pure and holy.  That’s who we are. 

Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin.

1 Corinthians 1:30b

Once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord.  So live as people of light!

Ephesians 5:8

And so Loving  Heavenly Father, Thank you for the amazing persons you have created us to be.  Help us to stick a new label on ourselves today, one that says: I am a new creation in Christ.  The old has gone and the new has come.” 

Help us to joyfully and confidently live with the identity we have through Jesus - that we are Your honoured and beloved children.  Amen. 

Pause for a moment and ask yourself, “Who do I say that I am?”  “Who does God say that I am?”  Let’s joyfully live as beloved children of our Heavenly Father.