Who Am I?

In Twelve Step Programs, it is common to introduce oneself using his/her addiction: "Hello, my name is Larry, I'm an alcoholic or drug addict or sexual addict or over eater or liar."  The notion is to admit what you are as a first step in overcoming your addiction.  I understand and agree with the premise.

However, admitting what one is can often bleed over into who one is.  We can begin to see ourselves as primarily as alcoholics or addicts or liars or losers or fill in the blank with whatever bad trait, compulsion or sin you may be struggling with - the problem of self-identification with the deficit can be defeating and is simply to true.

You may have an addiction but you are not, at your core, an addict.  You may struggle with telling lies, even when the truth would be just as easy to tell, but you are not, at your core, a liar.  You may be able to eat like a pig at a trough full of truffles, but you are not, at your core, an overwater.  All these are flaws or weaknesses or sins you may indeed be guilty of but they do not define you.

Would you like to hear who you are at your core?  Are you ready for the real you to stand up?  Are you ready to look past the mirrors that reflect your flaws, past the fingers that point out your failures, past the memories that reflect your sins and into the eyes of the One who created you, the one One who determined who you really are, the One who made you in His image?

Listen to the One who really knows you, all the way to your core: “In the very place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' there they will be called 'children of the living God'" (Rom 9:26).  Are you hearing that, really hearing that you are "a child of the living God!"  Regardless of all the things you may be struggling with, given in to, chosen to follow, failed at, etc., you are not any of those things, they are things with which you deal - you are a child of the living God!

I don't know if you've accepted your rightful place, if you've embraced who God made you to be, if you've allowed the grace of God through the blood of Christ to cleanse you from all your sins and fill you with His Holy Spirit, but I know that you are a child of the living God.  You may have run away from your roots, you may have denied your true identity, you may have rejected His offer of mercy and forgiveness.  But, nonetheless, you are His child.

As a child of God, you are of incredible worth, you have a calling that is above all the world can offer, you have a home waiting for you in your Father's house, you have the power of His Spirit to overcome every sin and flaw and failure you have or have ever been saddled.  Don't accept those deficits as the definition of you.  Embrace God's design in you - be known as a child of God!

Jesus calls those of us who are heavy burdened, by sin or sickness or saddens or selfishness, to come to him and get in his yolk with him so that he can help us plow through those struggles and enjoy the benefit of a co-heir with him (cf. Mt 11:28-30).  He provides the truth to the question, "Who Am I?" - you only need accept your place at the table as a child of God.  Jus' Say'n.