Fully Equipped

I recently traded in my car for a new one. We live on a fairly steep incline and my son and his friends snowboard and mountain bike, so my creamy sedan was just not cutting it. Wet, muddy teenage boys are now welcome in my all-wheel drive vehicle.

As we shopped for cars, we were intrigued by the many features that were available for safety and comfort. Air bags are now standard. Stereo quality varies. Some have navigation systems and some are bluetooth ready. The question becomes: which equipment am I willing to pay extra for?

After a while, I was tempted to believe that I deserved or needed certain features. What if I get lost? Shouldn't I have a GPS for safety? When I have to leave my car outside overnight, shouldn't I be able to rely on a speedy and efficient way to heat my posterior? And if fresh air is so good for me, doesn't it make sense to let more of it in through the sun roof? Please. It's not like we get a lot of those sunny days here to let in through the roof anyway...

Do you know what that attitude is called? It's called entitlement. If you listen to talk radio or have teenagers, you might be familiar with this concept. It's the idea that, by virtue of my very existence, I am entitled to certain rights, possessions, or comfort. We hope our kids grow out of it and it's not a biblical value. But it is in our human, carnal nature to want more. And to think we should get it. And if we're Christians, we sometimes think God owes us.

He doesn't.

Look at this passage from Paul's letter to the Corinthian Christians, as he describes what we've already been given:

"...in him you have been enriched in every way -- in all your speaking and in all your knowledge -- because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you. Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful." (1 Corinthians 1:5-9)

Huh. We have been enriched in every way. We do not lack any spiritual gift. In other words, spiritually speaking, we are fully loaded. Every and any are pretty absolute words. And, lest we forget, these blessings are brought to you by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. At no cost to us. It cost Him His life.

So what difference does that make in the life of a believer? How does it change our attitudes and behaviors to know that we are fully equipped to live the life He's called us to live?

For one, I think we can walk with a profound sense of freedom and confidence. We are complete. Our security and identity rests in our God, who cannot be shaken and to whom all creation belongs and submits. He will make us and keep us strong. He will empower us to speak words of truth and encouragement.

Secondly, I hope it tweaks our priorities as we remember that we have already been given more than we deserve and our focus should be on pleasing, thanking, and living in wholehearted devotion to the One who gave it to us.

Lastly, we can remember that if we don't have it, we don't need it. God is sovereign and generous in His loving provision.

As we begin a new year, we can be encouraged by the fact that God has indeed "blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ". (Ephesians 1:3) We are complete and fully equipped to live for Him. Lord, let it be so. Amen.

Faithflight - Identity

The movie The Bourne Identity opens with the scene of a man in a wetsuit floating in the middle of the ocean, a red light attached to him, blinking in the darkness. No one, including the man himself, knows who he is or how he got there, but once he’s pulled into a fishing boat and given some money and clothes on shore in France, the quest for his identity begins. Flashbacks of random scenes and intuitive reactions interrupt his amnesia, but he really only catches a glimpse of his complicated situation when he finds himself in a bank in Switzerland staring at a safety deposit box full of all kinds of currency and multiple passports, all with his picture and different names and nationalities. Is he Russian? Portuguese? American? British? And how will he learn his own story?

In many ways we are all like Jason Bourne. Going through life with glimpses of who God created us to be, but also faced with confusing information from the world around us. Sometimes that information clarifies our identity. Sometimes it becomes a distraction.

But the truth is that we were created uniquely and beautifully for the glory of our Father and Creator. And the closer we live to that identity, the freer we are to help others discover their identities and to walking in the truth and fullness that God designed for us.

But what is that identity? If we have responded to God’s invitation to a relationship through His Son Jesus Christ, the Bible has some very encouraging and clear things to say about who we are.

• We are His children. 1 John 3:1 says, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” We are adopted as children into the family of our Heavenly Father when we enter into a relationship with Christ. We are siblings with one perfect Father and there is confidence that comes in that sense of belonging.

• We are a new creation. 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us that we are an entirely new creation – the old has gone the new has come. Identity exchange! We are not merely upgrades of our pre-Christians selves; we are completely other! We can lean on that when the enemy of our souls tries to convince us that we are still stuck in the past.

• We are heirs of eternal riches. Romans 8:16-17: “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. ¹⁷ Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ…”This is for now! Just like we don’t have to wait for eternal life to begin at our death, the riches and blessing of God’s kingdom can be enjoyed while we’re still living!

• We are fully equipped to live life for God. 2 Peter 1:3 – “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” The only thing standing in the way of us living our lives fully for God is us. If we can grab hold of the identity God has for us, and press into Him and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, there is no limit to what we can accomplish for Him!

• We are chosen and holy, and we belong to God. 1 Peter 2:9-10 – “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. ¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” Need I say more? This is who we are!

• We are precious, honored, loved, and created or God’s glory. God told the prophet Isaiah that His people are His. Precious and honored in His sight. That He loves us and that we are called by His name, created for His glory. (Isaiah 43:1,4,7)

I don’t know about you, but I don’t always live my life as if I belong to God, as a precious heir of heavenly things. Like I’m chosen, called out of darkness and into light, created for God’s glory. I’m not sure what identity I live out from day to day, but it falls short of this one.

I want to examine an Old Testament example of identity exchange. The story in the book of Hosea. You may know the story: God tells Hosea to marry an adulterous wife (the ESV calls her “a wife of whoredom”) and to raise children with her. Gomer was a whore when Hosea married her and she continues her promiscuous ways while they are married. God’s point is to make an example of Gomer to show the Israelites how they are breaking His heart in turning away from Him and clinging to idols and disobedience.

In the course of their marriage there are children born. Because they are children of this adulterous woman who can’t remain faithful to Hosea, God tells Hosea to name them Jezreel (Hebrew for “God sows” and significant because of battles where blood had been shed and God would avenge the northern kingdom), “Not loved”, and “Not my people”. But even then, God tells Hosea that He will change the name of his children to reflect their new identities: They will be loved, redeemed, and receive mercy. Just like the people of Israel. There is hope and redemption for those who come to God and accept what He says is true about them. Just like for us.

Take a look at Hosea chapter 2 for a moment with me.

⁷She will chase after her lovers but not catch them;

she will look for them but not find them.

Then she will say,

‘I will go back to my husband as at first,

for then I was better off than now.’

⁸ She has not acknowledged that I was the one

who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil,

who lavished on her the silver and gold—

which they used for Baal.

⁹ “Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens, and my new wine when it is ready. 
I will take back my wool and my linen, intended to cover her naked body. ¹⁰ So now I will expose her lewdness 
before the eyes of her lovers; 
no one will take her out of my hands. 
¹¹ I will stop all her celebrations: her yearly festivals, her New Moons, her Sabbath days—all her appointed festivals. 
¹² I will ruin her vines and her fig trees, which she said were her pay from her lovers; 
I will make them a thicket, and wild animals will devour them. 
¹³ I will punish her for the days 
she burned incense to the Baals; 
she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but me she forgot,” declares the LORD.

¹⁴ “Therefore I am now going to allure her; 
 I will lead her into the wilderness 
 and speak tenderly to her. 
¹⁵ There I will give her back her vineyards, 
and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. 
There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.

¹⁶ “In that day,” declares the LORD, “you will call me ‘my husband’; 
you will no longer call me ‘my master.’ 
¹⁷ I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; 
 no longer will their names be invoked. 
¹⁸ In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky and the creatures that move along the ground. 
Bow and sword and battle I will abolish from the land, so that all may lie down in safety. 
¹⁹ I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. 
²⁰ I will betroth you in faithfulness, 
and you will acknowledge the LORD. ²¹ “In that day I will respond,” declares the LORD— 
“I will respond to the skies, and they will respond to the earth; 
²² and the earth will respond to the grain, the new wine and the olive oil, 
and they will respond to Jezreel. 
²³ I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’ 
I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people’; and they will say, ‘You are my God.’” (Hosea 2:9-23)

Not only do Gomer’s children get names according to the identities God has for them; Gomer’s identity is meant to change as well. From a promiscuous woman chasing after the affection and affirmation she craves to a woman betrothed in faithfulness, wooed and romanced by the God of the universe, she exemplifies what God wants to do in all of us. But until Gomer – and until we – acknowledge God and accept the identity He has for us, she – and we – will keep chasing other things to give us a feeling of security and identity that will never last.

This is a message for us. We will live out the identity we believe most strongly. Gomer lived as a whore because she believed that’s all she deserved or wanted out of life. We may live as if all we need is a successful career. Or to be proud of our children’s athletic or academic accomplishments. Or to be highly organized. Or to have the perfect body. A house that Martha Stewart would envy. Or to be active in church leadership. You name it. We cling to it.

Instead, we are meant to walk fully in the knowledge that we are secure in our identities because we belong to God, regardless of our relationships or activities. The rest is a delightful outpouring of the gifts and blessings that God gives us in order to bring Him glory and advance His kingdom purposes. But if we cling too tightly to our false identities we have to ask ourselves questions like:

- If my career is everything to me and I lose my job, do I have less value? Have I lost everything?

- If my children and their accomplishments define me and they fail, do I have less value? Have I lost everything?

- If my house is a wreck, or people don’t like me, or I don’t teach Sunday School well, or if I let people down, do I have less value? Have I lost everything?

The answer has to be a resounding “no”. These things are temporal and out of our control. They affect us, but they don’t define us.

On the other hand, if it’s not true that I am a chosen, holy, loved, precious child of God, betrothed in faithfulness and called by name, created for the glory of my Father, does my value change? Have I lost everything? Yes. Because it is everything and it is eternal.

When my son was in elementary school, one of his friends had a grandmother die of tuberculosis. Since WW II she had been living with 25% lung capacity. How difficult to breathe in the scent of spring lilacs or a baby’s head. How dissatisfying to laugh until you can’t catch your breath, when catching your breath is a daily challenge.

Living outside a full understanding of our identities in Christ is like living with less than full lung capacity. Jesus came so that we would have full and abundant lives in Him. That is only possible if we fully understand and embrace who we were created to be. Uniquely and beautifully knit together in our mother’s womb, we are called by His name to live, breathe and walk fully in the identity – with the name – He has called us.

That’s what this FaithFlight series is going to be about: Letting go of the identities that suffocate and paralyze us, and learning to embrace the only identity that matters and will last for eternity. That of precious and holy daughter of the King.