Confident Identity

Discover Who You Really Are

identity

Is My Identity Christ?

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You may have heard your calling is your assignment from God and your identity is Christ. This statement is biblical on the surface but is also potentially misleading.

“Your Identity Is Christ” Is Ambiguous

What if someone misinterprets this as the new age idea that you’re an anonymous drop in a bucket? You’re “one with god?” You have no identity, but must live out Christ’s identity? When you become a Christian, do you lose the sense of who you are? No!

God designed you so you can’t lose your identity. You’re a one-of-a-kind unique creation. Your identity describes who you are. When you become a Christian, you identify with Christ, but you don’t become Christ. Your identity has a new meaning, but you remain a distinct person.

So What Is Identity?

Consider these four dictionary definitions (compiled from yourdictionary.com/identity and dictionary.com/browse/identity) that capture the essence of identity. Identity is:

  1. “Who you are.” This definition encapsulates what I mean by identity.
  2. “The set of characteristics by which you are definitively recognizable.” This definition clarifies that we can use identity to distinguish you from others.
  3. “Your unique characteristics held by no other person.” This definition clarifies that having an identity means you have something that no one else will ever have.
  4. “What remains the same, constant, persisting over time, under varying circumstances.” This definition provides the insight that identity must be permanently yours, or else it really isn’t part of you.

Your Identity Has Shared and Exclusive Attributes

Look at this Venn diagram to see that you have shared attributes, but you also have attributes exclusive to you.

Spiritually speaking, a lot is going on inside of you. As Christian, you have the Holy Spirit dwelling within you. You also have the work of Christ applied to your life.

If you’re a Christian, you have an agreement with God. You are a new creation because the Holy Spirit takes up residence with you. Although you’re dependent upon God for your spiritual health, you remain a distinct person capable of making your own decisions and manifesting your own personality.

Christ’s Substitutionary Death Didn’t Kill Your Personality

Spiritually, you died to sin because of your acceptance of Christ. Whatever Christ did, God considers you to have done it too. Christ sustains your life by faith.

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20 ESV

“I no longer live” doesn’t mean that you no longer have an identity. This means you yield to Christ because He sustains your spirit. You allow Jesus to do for you want you can’t do for yourself. You’re a distinct being, having your own identity. Your identity is powered by God and the Holy Spirit is working to make your spiritual character pure like Christ.

But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. Romans 8:10 ESV

Becoming a Christian Enhances Your Distinctiveness

The goal in life isn’t to become a Jesus clone. Instead, God wants you to be a distinct personality that demonstrates the same character as Jesus.

Others will appreciate Jesus more when they see a distinct person exhibiting His character than if they see a generic person trying to show love. God is all about co-operation. He wants diversity and unity. God gets all the glory, but He delights in seeing Himself reflected in the many different identities of His people. You experience and exhibit God in ways like no other.

Introvert’s Guide to a Confident Identity

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God knows exactly who you are. This includes all past, present, and future versions of yourself. But you don’t know everything about yourself. God intends for you to discover who you are.

Here are some practical steps so you can accelerate your growth and become all God made you to be. Try doing one of these a day for about 20 minutes.

  1. Activate Your Present into Greater Awareness
    • Write in a journal to experience yourself from the outside
    • Spend time in quiet meditation, allowing your thoughts to move freely from one to the next
    • Talk to a close friend who listens well, deposit your thoughts with them
    • Pray your thoughts, feelings, and desires to God, make sure he knows what’s on your heart
    • Take self-discovery quizzes such MBTI (for example: 16personalities.com)
    • Review your dreams for insights into your desires and struggles
  2. Review Your Experiences
    • Reflect on what happened to you today
    • Reflect on the dreams you had last night
    • Reflect on how your life is different in the past year
    • Review your life in years or decades
  3. Plan Your Future
    • Assess which of your desires align with who you are vs who others expect you to be
    • Select some part of you that you want to focus on developing further
    • Look forward in various time frames (1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years)
    • Select goals to accomplish

How to Ditch Despair and Catch Confidence

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Benjamin Franklin said, “Some people die at 25 and aren’t buried until 75.” William Wallace said, “Every man dies, but not every man truly lives.” What is truly living? Is that even possible?

Some people never discover the depths of who they are. They go on living, but keep their talents buried. Others succumb to despair and end their lives prematurely.

Then there are the ones who learn the secret to catching confidence. If anyone knows who they really are — who God made them to be — they become fortified against despair. Identity is the antidote for despair. Those with a secure identity have hope. All hell can break lose, but they know who they are and whose they are.

Those out of touch with their identity will remain stuck in despair. Darkness will dominate both the person who lacks a sense of their identity and the person who experiences a deep sense of shame when they touch upon their identity. One way to look at shame is feeling who you are is worthless and defective. When someone feels worthless, they become increasingly sensitive to rejection and, in extreme cases, see no way out other than suicide.

Those without a strong sense of self are easily deceived and enticed by quick fixes. They will be tossed around like a leaf in a tornado. They are subject to being carried off by anything that sounds good or anything that avoids bad feelings. They can only go with the flow and the default flow is rarely anything good.

If you want to really live, then discover your true identity. You’ll be on your way to reaching your fullest potential. To achieve a confident identity, follow these steps:

1. Be: Simply Exist and Receive Love

Acceptance is the foundation for genuine growth. To receive love, you need at least one person who can love you the way you are, but then also encourage you to become all you are.

2. Identity: Develop the Sense of Who You Are

With a strong identity, you’ll have a built-in reason to live that you can never lose. You’ll have power to give up unhealthy people-pleasing behaviors. You can stop feeling anxious about who you’re supposed to be. You’ll no longer have to depend on others to tell you who you’re supposed to be. You can stop worrying and start living.

3. Do: Practice and Grow Your Abilities

To further grow the sense of who you are, practice and refine your abilities. Talent without hard work will remain dormant.

4. Mission: Fulfill Your Purpose

So far, the first three steps are about you learning who you really are. As you mature, you’ll be ready to fulfill your unique purpose. You’ll be ready to give yourself to a purpose greater than yourself.

5. Live: Enjoy the Time You Have

Be healthy. Take care of yourself and enjoy the life God has given you. Even Jesus rested from his work. Remember that life isn’t about you slaving away 24/7. You’ll only be of benefit to others when you give from the overflow of God’s presence in your life.

6. Sacrifice: Invest Your Time in Others

You can’t sacrifice what you don’t have. Only after you have your identity can you give it up for the sake of others. God didn’t make you to cling to earthly pleasures. Once you have an identity, God calls you to pour all he has given you into the lives of others.

Change is especially hard when you’re depressed. Fortunately, the first step toward health, simply being, only requires you to receive love. Are you tired of depending on unpredictable and unreliable life circumstances for happiness? Find joy by knowing all that your creator intends for you to be.

Knowing God’s Will

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You have an opportunity…

… to take a new job.

… to travel to an exotic location and provide short-term help.

… to date a guy you just met.

Do you do it or not? What do you do when you have these choices? Maybe something interesting shows up, just out of the blue. Or maybe it’s been brewing for a while. But either way, there comes a time when you have to make a decision — what do you do? These things can be hard for everyone to figure out. Christians have an extra step: How can I know if what I want to do is within God’s will?

Is God’s will supposed to be an added burden, something Christians need to slog through or search for mysterious signs or Bible passages? Maybe it can be a delight. How you think about this has a lot of do with your view of God—is He a cosmic killjoy, trying to steal your fun? Or is he a loving Father who wants good for you? Someone who delights in you?

The God of the Bible is one who is angry with sin, and its effects — brokenness, disease, hurt feelings, injustice — but loves people enough to send his own precious Son to die to pay the penalty for our sins. He desires a relationship with us.

Which brings us back to God’s will.

His desire is for relationship with Him. Do you have one? Do you desire this, either as someone who has never trusted him, or as a Believer who has—is this what you desire in the present circumstance?

If you do want to connect with God, do you see him as a loving Father? When you know Him as a loving Father, involved in your life as someone who created you and knows you intimately, his general commands, found in the Bible, take on a whole different meaning. They are for your good, your protection from possible harm.

So what does the Bible say? Does it speak directly to your situation?

But what if your situation passes these tests? What then? This is true for so many decisions. Your options are lawful, moral, possibly even obviously really good things. Another question becomes, is it wise?

One thing you want to do is to look at yourself.

What are your priorities? Goals? Interests? Values?

If your interest is in learning about other cultures with a view towards using your education overseas someday, for example, then that travel opportunity makes a lot of sense. Maybe.

But even that doesn’t necessarily mean a green light—more of a yellow, proceed with caution.

The caution is wise counsel. This is where learning, asking questions, getting details, talking with people who’ve had similar experiences or goals can be extremely useful. Does it make business sense? Logistical sense? Financial sense? What about relationally? Does it have the potential to build the type of relationships you desire with God and with others, or might it tear them down?

Prayer is a foundational element. As you ask God for wisdom, he wants to share it with you. Asking God to reveal hidden things, asking for him to provide for you, including all information you need to make a decision are valid requests and a part of the process.

But what if you realize you don’t have a sense of your goals and values? Do you feel fuzzy about what you want? You’re just going along with what sounds good, having a good time and enjoying yourself while trying to make sure you have enough material things you need. That’s ok, but it might be that this is an area that you want to develop and grow in.

Knowing God’s will, his desire for you, is a process. Is he going to give you guidance? Yes, he will walk with you through your decision. But, while sometimes he may give you a clear, specific game plan of what to do, there could be other times he’s allowing you to exercise your free will and preferences to make the decision. The Confident Identity workbook allows you to become intimately acquainted with who you are. When you know your goals, your unique gifting, and your personality, you’re able to know God’s will for your life.

Who am I?

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I’ve always wanted my life to have meaning. I spent my teenage years trying to make sense of life. What is the meaning of life? Until I became a Christian at 20 years old, I couldn’t find an answer.

I’m still working on my answer today, but I have a much better one than I did 30 years ago. I don’t stumble around in the dark as much. I spend more time figuring out the best way to make use of my time — and actually using it.

Who you think you are has more power to determine the course of your life than anything else. I can think of only four possible answers to “Who am I?”

  1. Are you a randomly assembled group of cells — a culmination of billions of years of evolution? Nothing more than an animal with a brief 100 years to live and then you’ll cease to exist?
  2. Are you a species planted by an extraterrestrial life form — the descendants of a people who didn’t care to explain where you come from and why you’re on this planet?
  3. Were you created by a distant and indifferent god who delights in seeing you suffer and is too lazy or too selfish to mount a rescue mission?
  4. Or, instead, are you the intentional and specific creation of a God who loves and cares about you so much that He did rescue you out of a sick world?

Life is really hard because you don’t live in Paradise. If you don’t have an identity or don’t know God’s love, then all that remains is attempting to extract the most pleasure from every moment you have. What happens when life doesn’t go the way you want it to? There’s only more despair now and/or more later when you face death.

But life isn’t that bleak. You don’t live in a meaningless vacuum, and this makes all the difference. Hope exists for today in the life you have here because of the reality you have beyond this life.
Who you are changes the course of the world because of all God has done to set you free and empower you with His Holy Spirit. God has defeated and disarmed your primary obstacles (death, sin, and the curse), thereby opening a path before you.

Be on a journey of discovery. Look beyond your obstacles, be they rejection, failure, or fear. The enemy makes use of these to block your vision of a glorious hope.
Seek to know and understand the God who created you. Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself. To truly love someone, you need to know them warts, wonder, and all. You have a backstage pass to your own life. You and the Holy Spirit get to witness the internal workings of God’s creation: you. The more you fully understand your identity in relation to Jesus, the more you can understand and love others.

Too often, people ignore themselves as they seek to love others. But you can’t possibly love others until you’re intimately aware of all that God has placed in you. Then you can experience love for God and yourself and, finally, genuine affection for others. So pursue your Confident Identity; don’t shy away from investing in discovering God’s amazing creation.

I’ve struggled to understand my significance over the years. I’ve felt lost and adrift on a great, empty ocean. This book will give you a major boost forward in life. It’s not a shortcut, because you’ll need to do the work for yourself, but it should keep you from wandering aimlessly in shark-infested waters and point you toward a safe haven called home. You can be at home with yourself because Jesus is your Immanuel — God with you.