Identity! Where do I get one?

Who am I? Why am I here?

This is a two-part feature. Let’s tackle the first part.

The 4th century philosophers were the first to entertain the idea of “tablula rasa,” literally translated means “scraped tablet” or in the 17th century it was called “blank slate” by John Locke. The concept was that other than a few reflective capacities, the human being came into the world basically only cognizant of a primitive self-awareness. Real knowledge, as most understand it, is something we acquire over the course of our lifetimes and depend on our environment and the experiences provided by the geography and time into which we are born.

What does this have to do with identity? Glad you asked. How we perceive ourselves, our self-awareness is dictated largely by life as we learn from it. However, this is not the whole picture. God also has a word to say about identity. Since he is the one sho created us it would be a good idea to start with him rather than just check in as an after-thought.

It starts with Genesis 1 and 2 in the Bible. There, in Genesis 1:26-27 God says, “let us make humankind in our image…male and female he created them…in his image and likeness” (roughly paraphrased). But what does that mean? It means that we have certain traits that are like God…reflections of him. We do not possess all of God’s traits like omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence etc. but he used himself as the pattern and cut us from the same cloth in many ways. Kinda cool to think about. In Genesis 2, the creation of humanity was from the dust of the earth and God personally shaped the first person by getting his hands dirty. And God has been “hands on” ever since. Often repeatedly getting his hands full of the muck of life we have made. We are the pinnacle of his creation. Which means he considers us the best thing he ever created. Given the fact that God created all the vast universe complete with stars and galaxies beyond our comprehension; then for him to think we were the best thing he did is pretty impressive and something we should see as mind-blowing. And it gets even better.

Now, before we are even born, we are “knit together in our mother’s womb” by God himself. This fact is understood and written down for us in Psalm 139. God truly is the “infinite-personal” as Francis Schaeffer said in his book, “How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture.

Without God, we are left completely to our own human devices, tendencies, and urges with no direction or concrete purpose. (In other words, our reason for being here. But table that for now). But why is that a bad? We are fairly smart…I mean, can’t we figure it out for ourselves? Hint: we’ve been trying that for thousands of years. That hasn’t gone well. But why are things so messed up if we are created in the image of God? Uh, keep reading…

Read Genesis 3. Oh Nooooooo! Adam and Eve do not guard and tend the garden as God asked them to. Hence the serpent slithers in unnoticed, speaks to Eve, twists all of God’s words and promises, gets them to stop trusting God, and start trusting themselves instead. They buy into the lie that their own knowledge and finite understanding is pretty darn good and they slip into disobedience. Sin! They usher in all the ugliness and death they were supposed to work with God in subduing in the world. But instead choose to figure things out on their own and it’s, well…look around…it’s was a disaster.

So here enters the other part of our present identity…sin. It becomes part of our nature and still causes a whole lot of ugly today. So now our identity is that of fallen image-bearers. This makes us capable of great good and horrific evil and everything in between. It’s been a struggle ever since to know right and wrong, good and bad, and all things pertaining to life and how best to flourish. That’s why life and work is so blasted hard. But there is good news…if you choose to listen to it.

God acts on our behalf out of his infinite goodness. First, he kicks Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, which before the fall was like paradise on earth. That seems harsh until you remember that the tree of life that would guarantee Adam and Eve never died could have been eaten from by Adam and Eve and they would have lived on indefinitely. That doesn’t sound so bad until you remember that after they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil if they ate from the tree of life it would have guaranteed all of humanity would live in eternal sinfulness - eternally sinful with no hope of redemption? Not good. So they were evicted until such time when God would send his Son, the Savior. Jesus would eventually come and, take on the last tree, the cross and win by beating Satan at his own game of sin and death. Jesus took all of sin into himself and died to destroy it forever. He then rose from the dead to prove his preeminence over all things. The undefeatable, undeniable Lord, King of Kings who grabbed the authority Adam and Eve had surrendered when they sinned and gave them back to all believers. So, a new identity is now possible. This is the ultimate good news!

1 John 3:1 states, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called the children of God, and that is what we are.” If you believe in Jesus Christ and trust in him alone for a renewed relationship with God, then you are his child, marked with the cross of Christ forever. If you believe and are baptized, (Mark 16:16), you are his. If you haven’t, you aren’t. Now God loves all people and his will is that none should perish. But if you refuse his invitation to be part of the family you are obviously not a child of God. He will not force you to the table to eat your green vegetables. If you really would rather stay away from the home of peace, joy, celebration, and healing, he will honor that free choice. Yep, you are in charge of your own life and create your own meaning and purpose. So what really informs you true identity? You are thinking, “No thanks, I’m good. Good without God.” I have just one question. How good is good enough?

Kudos to all of you who believe in your own goodness and make a concerted effort to help others live morally upright lives. It all seems perfect until something really ugly happens to you or someone you love and you played a role in the catastrophe. Because of sin, we have a capacity to make ugly mistakes that have really awful consequences. Without an identity cemented in God’s family as a child, no matter how bad we stumble we are left to find peace, healing, and wholeness, somewhere else. Somewhere other than the one who made us, designed us, and has a will and intent for us that is thoroughly and completely good. That’s how our identity shows up in our lives. Bad things continue to happen but not without hope, grace, and faith that guarantee us a place in his house and a place where he gathers his children around the table.

As children of the good Father, we are fellow heirs with Christ to all the rich inheritance promised through faith in Jesus. If you like singing along with Frank Sinatra, “I did it my way” (OK, good tune, horrible lyric), I get it. You are going to call the shots, come what may. Like there is great virtue in living your own life that ends in destruction as long as you did it the way you wanted to? A loving Father does not put his children on a collision course with theft, murder, and destruction (John 10:10). But that is exactly what happens if you believe the Father of lies, the Devil, and empower his lie that you don’t need any god in your life. But here lies the lie of all lies. We all worship something. Whatever matters most to you, you will worship, and acquire your identity from, even if it’s only yourself.

To cap this off let’s look at Matthew 22:36-40. A pretty smart guy asked Jesus:

36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Did you notice that loving God is the first commandment? Why? Because we receive our identity from God, our maker. This is the starting point for living a flourishing human life. As we love him, his goodness in our lives shapes us and defines our identity from which we are able to love ourselves and find the capacity to love our neighbor.

Hence, we can safely say that identity dictates how we live, formulate ethics, know what true wisdom is, and what it isn’t, and will affect how we perceive as our purposes. The first purpose is clear… “love God.” So, child of God, who you are motivates what you think, feel, and do. And that’s the question we’ll tackle in the next blog. What is the reason for me being here?