My old identity has been co-crucified with Christ and no longer lives. And now the essence of this new life is no longer mine, for the Anointed One lives his life through me—we live in union as one! My new life is empowered by the faith of the Son of God who loves me so much that he gave himself for me, dispensing his life into mine! Galatians 2:20
The Passion Translation
Who are you? What was your first thought? Mom? Dad? Teacher? Student? Athlete? Coach? The list can go on and on. Those titles aren’t who you are, though. They are roles that you have filled, but they are not you.
If you have seen the movie Overcomer you can already tell where I am going with this. Remember the scene where the man in the hospital bed asks the coach “who are you?” The coach goes through a list consisting of “coach,” “teacher,” “father,” “husband,” yadah-yadah. The blind ill man finally gets him to say, “Christian.”
We put everything that we do in front of who we are. See, being a Christian isn’t a role we fill. Being a Christian is who we are. It shapes who we decide to be. We change the way we look at the world, ourselves, others, and life in general once we decide to be a Christian.
When we put out roles and actions in front of who we really are, it can be hard to crucify our old identity to pick up a new one. Let me pause for a minute. You may not be understanding what I mean by old and new identities.
Your old identity is the one given to you by the world. This identity consists of all the values the world places in front of you, all the wrongs you ever did, all the people you ever knew, and on and on. That old identity is not who you were meant to be. That identity is supposed to be crucified once you become a Christian.
If you allow God to crucify your old identity, you are able to pick up your new identity. This identity can be found in God alone. That is why we can say that we are Christians and identify by that. When we declare proudly that we are Christians, we are declaring that we allow God to lead our lives and to show us His ways. We declare that we aren’t going to let the world tell us who we are.
Did you know that it wasn’t normal for someone to resurrect from a crucifixion? Yeah, that ain’t a pretty or painless death. Often times the criminal is brutally beaten, forced to carry a heavy cross to their place of death, and then nailed to the cross. The only way to breathe was to push up the little you could with your feet to gasp for breath. Imagine that pain alone. You push up, dragging the nails farther through your flesh, for one more painful breathe.
If the beating and the inability to breathe didn’t get ya, then the long hours without water or food would. It is doubtful that you would get to the point where no food and water made a difference, but now you can see there was no way not to die.
I went into detail on this because I want you to realize how amazing and gracious it was that God raised Jesus up from the grave. Also, to realize that once you crucify your old identity, you ain’t bringin’ it back. When it is gone, it is gone permanently. That is why you shouldn’t try to keep living as that person!
You cannot keep the same lifestyle, sometimes the same friends, the same habits, the same language, the same thoughts, etc. Along with that, you cannot keep living in shame of your past. It is easy to fall into shame over what you’ve done, and it isn’t wrong to admit something was wrong, but you cannot be defined by your past.
When you pick up your new identity, you need to allow God to help you to make better choices in life. You need to allow Him to tell you when He needs you to cut ties with a friend. You need to let Him tell you that you are forgiven. These can all be very difficult things, but they are not something that you can just ignore.
It is my belief that the time to worry is when you stop giving things up to God. When you start believing that you’ve got it all together to the point you don’t think that you need to give anything up, that is 1. incorrect and 2. unbelievably ignorant.
The day that you won’t need to give something to God is the day that you join Him in Heaven. That’ll be the day that all is made right and all things are good. Yes, here on earth we are “One with Christ,” but we, not Christ, are still flawed. All flawed people, a.k.a. all people, make mistakes.
The good news is, we have the hope and identity given to us by God! Pick up your new identity and live boldly! May you begin to see changes in your life that begin to impact those around you.
If you do not have a relationship with Jesus, read Do You Believe? and learn more about faith in Jesus.