... on Identity.

“Who am I?”

The question that lies deep within each and every individual on the planet. This is a question that ultimately shapes the foundation of our lives. Place your identity in the wrong spot and the entire structure of your life will inevitably fall. I think of Jesus’ parable in Matthew 7 of the man who builds his house on the sand. The storms of life came with screams of destruction and after each devastating hit, the house crumbled more and more until the house fell altogether. Jesus says, “and great was the fall of it” (v. 27). And yet, in the same story, Jesus paints a beautiful picture of the one who has built his house upon the rock.

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.” (vv. 24-25)

The correct alignment of identity, that is being founded on the rock, ultimately affects the very way we understand the world. It is the lens in which we process and take in our past, present, and future circumstances. Our identity is our worldview. So then, what is this rock on which we are to build the houses of our identities? It is Jesus (Mt. 21:42; Eph. 2:19-22; etc.).

Allow me to paint you a picture. When Jesus knocks on the door of our lives, he knocks with a sledgehammer in his hand. He carries the sledgehammer because his intent is to completely destroy the house that we have built for ourselves. He wants to build us a new mansion instead, but he must get rid of the house that stands in the way. The house (that is what we believe to be our identity, whether it be our intellect, our success, our family, our athletics, our sexual preferences, our wealth, or even our services) is a house that is slowly sinking and falling apart. We have built our identities with temporal earthly things, with rotting wood. Christ wants to knock it down and build with stone, on the firm foundation.

The problem is, we are so proud of the rotting wood houses that we’ve built that we cannot bring ourselves to give it up. Our identity, our focus, is so locked onto our own achievement and desires that we are not willing to let Jesus make us a new identity, a new life. But that’s what he does. Jesus doesn’t make our lives better… he makes our lives new. He’s not going to settle for living in a house made of rotting wood. He deserves to live in a palace, a mansion, a temple, at the very least a house made of stone, one that’ll stand the storms.

So, who am I?

That question is missing a piece… Who am I to stop Christ from destroying my idea of identity, of life? … Who am I that Christ would give me a new life?