Where do you find your Identity and Purpose?

This is the fifth instalment in my series entitled The Heart of the Matter.

The heart holds your sense of who you are and why you are here.

Everybody needs a purpose in life. It’s what makes you excited to wake up each morning and feel fulfilled when you rest at night.

As you create your sense of purpose, the other facets of your life start to come together. You improve your relationships with the people around you, you add value to your community, and you learn how to spend your time.

Don’t let work be the identity of your existence – set your identity in Christ and you will therein be fulfilled. Don’t try and fill something only God can fill. Our primary identity in Christ will always be intact, even after we retire from work one day, but then our work identity ceases.

Culture says: What I do determines who I am. Christ (as He comes into our lives) causes us to realize that who I am determines what I do. In Christ, we first discover our identity – who we are in Christ, which is something we don’t achieve, but something that God gives us as Christ-followers, by grace. When we are able to discover our identity, in light of that, we are able to choose a behavior and a lifestyle, a way of living in response.

There is a difference between a concept of God and the reality of God, i.e. His weight/glory. A concept of God does not shake your world, as everything in your life essentially remains the same and is not shaken nor displaced. Your agenda, plans and desires take priority, not God. You see God as being lighter (less significant) than you. You believe “I’ll be good and then the good God will come through for me.” The reality of God is that His glory displaces these ideas, concepts, priorities and agendas in your life. God’s glory is bigger and more beautiful than everything else in your life.

God did not create us for disease, angst, disillusionment, depression, betrayal, etc., therefore we have a sense of wrongness if we experience any of these, and we long for something that can fill the hunger in our soul where everything will be made right.

We lack the power to change our lives to become a complete person who is totally contented in life. We require a transformation from within by the power of the gospel. There is no heart too hard for it to penetrate and make a new creation.

(Gospel Revolution Extracts)

The Gospel is the ongoing power of God to change you, to save you from the lesser things that you need saving from, such as ungodly attitudes and actions. The Gospel is all we need for all of life. It is the only substance in the universe that can successfully infiltrate and change your two sources of behavior: your identity and your heart.

1) The Gospel changes my IDENTITY

Humans are so designed that how we think about ourselves largely determines how we behave. So, change your identity (how you think about yourself) and your behavior will change accordingly. In response to your new identity, you begin to live in a way that reflects who you now are. Identity then behavior.

Because you are with Jesus, the Father gives you a brand new Gospel identity upfront, not based on any of your works, just because you are “with Him”. If you believe and embrace this new identity, it will catalyse a change of behavior from the inside out. Your new identity in the Gospel is righteous, accepted and empowered.

a) My Identity is Righteous. Your identity is now that you are as righteous as Jesus. You are no longer a sinner who sometimes behaves righteously; you are now a righteous person who sometimes behaves sinfully. Like an onion that starts to rot on the outside, although your outer “behavioral” layer might sometimes look rotten, cut yourself open and you will find you are righteous to the core. You are a new creation, fully empowered to behave differently.

b) My Identity is Accepted. To be accepted by a Holy God you need to be righteous, and righteous you now are. That righteousness is a free gift from God to you. But the trust of the Gospel is in fact, “Because you are accepted, obey.” This order of accepted first and obey second is everywhere in the Bible. We believe unto salvation not behave unto salvation. Behaviour follows belief. Obedience follows acceptance. There is no greater motivation to behave well than the inner, upfront assurance of acceptance by God. God’s way is to brand us, upfront, with unconditional acceptance as the primary motivation to live godly lives.

c) My Identity is Empowered. This is about receiving the power of the Holy Spirit. It is God who energises our very desires, hopes and aspirations through His Holy Spirit. God is at work in us to will and to do. The Gospel is that God comes within us to change us.

2) The Gospel changes my HEART

Proverbs 4:23 “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” The heart is our source of behavior. Change the heart, change the behavior.

a) The heart always pursues happiness. (see topic number 6)

b) The heart resists rules but receives the Gospel. Giving the heart a what without a compelling why doesn’t work.

i. The Gospel and a stingy heart. Let the generosity of the Gospel melt your heart into a generous shape.

ii. The Gospel and the unforgiving heart. In the Gospel we have abundant motivation to forgive others, because the Gospel is that we have been forgiven much – scandalously much - by our heavenly King.

iii. The Gospel and the racist heart. What heart can remain racist in the face of God’s non-racism towards us (see Paul confronting Peter on racism in Galatians 2).

Receiving the Gospel must not be a once-off event because overcoming a hard heart is not a once-off event. A heart has the ability to harden in a different area before you know it, so we need to cultivate a lifestyle of constantly being softened by the Gospel.

c) The heart worships what it believes will satisfy it the most. Simply, we long to be satisfied. Our hearts love to worship, actively pursuing that which we believe will satisfy us most deeply, be it money, relationships, achievements, etc. Only Jesus, the Gospel, can ultimately satisfy you. Every other pursuit will, when you achieve that goal, after a short-lived rush of contentment, leave you feeling empty and dissatisfied, and so you move on to the next pursuit. Idolatry (pursuing God-substitutes) is the driving force behind every sin. Idolatry is usually driven by a disbelief in the Gospel. Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, will he not graciously give us all things?”

Galatians 4:6 “God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts.”

The Spiritual Gifts can be seen as identifiers of what your life’s purpose could be. Completing an assessment will provide you with results that can assist you with this focus.

Behind every gift is a giver and behind these gifts is the grace of God.

We all have talents, but when we are operating with God within, they are gifts. It is about feeling the connection with God in what you are doing. As you spend time employing your gift, you feel how God is working in you. If you don't feel it, that is most likely not your gift/calling/sweet spot.

Spiritual gifts are not there to primarily make your life work. They are that empowering of the Holy Spirit to help mission to move along.

Although God welcomes us as we are, warts and all, He does not leave us there. He works to improve us and our relationships. God created relationships for thriving.

Failure is what you did, not who you are, nor who you are becoming as a person.

It is not how you start that counts, but how you end.

When God breaks into your life, He can make something beautiful out of even your most embarrassing and regretful moments or acts. God rescues us despite ourselves. He takes the impossible and does glorious things.

Lessons from Luke 9 on what comprises love for Jesus and for others:

1. No Sin. Sin is the opposite of love. In the middle of the word SIN is the letter ‘I’. Jesus says “Those who would come after me must deny themselves.” V23. Every day the challenge of love requires little acts of self-denial.

2. No Self (vv23,24). “…those who lose their lives for me will save them”. Don’t live a life of selfish ambition. The way to find life in all its fullness is to abandon you life to the love of Jesus and of others.

3. No Secrecy (v26). Don’t be ashamed of Jesus, His teaching or His words. If you want Jesus to be proud of you, you must be proud of Him. If you love people you will want everyone to know about Jesus.

Compare, complain & criticize less. Aristotle said “The only way to avoid criticism is to do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”

Behaviour follows Belief. We don’t behave unto salvation; we believe unto salvation.

Change your position and change your perspective.

Proverbs 27:19 “As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart.”

Proverbs 4:23 “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”

Proverbs 17:22 “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”

Hebrews 10:22 “let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”

Matthew 12:33-36. Whatever is stored up in your heart will sooner or later be expressed by your words. Fill your heart with good things and you will think good thoughts, speak good words and bear good fruit.

33 “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. 34 You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. 35 A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. 36 But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. 37 For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Luke 6:41-49 “41 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 42 How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

A Tree and Its Fruit

43 “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. 44 Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. 45 A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

The Wise and Foolish Builders

46 “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? 47 As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. 48 They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. 49 But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”

Your identity is the source of your strength and your ability to overcome all your fears and phobias and the uncertainties or challenges you face. If the Lord is the source of your strength, you will also have joy. (Nehemiah 8:10).