Describe yourself in three words.
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Maybe you’re in the camp that sees yourself in a good light: loving, caring, thoughtful, kind.
Maybe words you self-associate with are difficult to admit: depressed, anxious, fearful, unworthy.
Maybe your identity sounds good: self-sufficient, hard worker, successful. Even good things can become our identity, such as our career, our children, retirement fund, or talents.
The truth is that your identity as a person must be found in who God says you are. If your identity is in anything other than who you are in Christ, you are in for trouble because if the things that you find security in shake, your identity will as well. You are not your career, your achievements, or your mistakes. Your identity is a child of God.
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In this story, we find a man who, on the outside, had it all. He was successful and well-known. See how others label him and how Jesus gives him a new identity.
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1 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. 5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. 7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”
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Take a moment to look at this label. This man was a sinner, and Jesus knew this. But our identity, whether earned from our actions or given by others, is always superseded by the identity we receive from God.
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8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
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Your identity, at its core, is a son or daughter of God. When you embrace that truth, you find the peace and security you need to face any circumstance life may throw at you.
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Confess your identity in Christ by reading these verses out loud, filling your name in where applicable.
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9 We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, 10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, 12 and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
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Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
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So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.
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For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
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But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
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