Others have said that identity is bestowed. This is so very true. We draw our identity from outside of ourselves. This is true about us because we are created to be relational. We are created to and for love, and therefore our identity is formed in significant relationships. We are especially impacted by important people in our lives. If someone who has been in your life for a long time, or someone you have deep respect for feels a certain way about you, or treats you in a particular way, you have a tendency to embrace their opinion as who you really are. This can be a healthy thing as God can use important people in your life to help establish your identity In Christ, but it can be a dangerous thing also. If you come into relationships with an already shattered identity because of broken relationships with broken people in the past then you can be so bent toward others that you give them unholy power to identify who you truly are. Of course the answer is that, yes God can use others to affirm your identity, but the only significant person that can faithfully, and accurately establish your true value and identity is Jesus. As I said yesterday, the truth about you is that you are Loved and a Lover. God doesn’t see as Man sees, for man looks at the outward but God looks at the heart. God affirms the true you by what He sees in your heart. Those deep longs and desires inside of you is who God sees and that is who He calls forth. People often identify you solely by your performance, or mistakes. Although behavior isn’t irrelevant, it isn’t God’s chief criteria for identifying a person. Saul’s behavior was not near as dispiscable as David’s, yet God rejected Saul and affirmed David’s true self as A Man After God’s Own Heart. Enjoy the affirmations of those around you, but don’t allow the truth about you to be told by anyone but God. He is the most important, and significant person in your life, and no one has known you as long or better than Him.
