Identity Part 5: God-Given Identity

Position, Purpose and Spiritual Formation

Photo by Felicia Buitenwerf on Unsplash

The central point of who we are in God is found in the moment of salvation. As Jesus says in John 3: "Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again." The act of salvation takes people into a dualistic challenge that lasts for the rest of our lives on earth.

In the context of the four previous posts I have written on identity, all of that is incorporated into the process of becoming a new creation (2 Cor 5:17), and that’s what makes identity in Christ really tricky.

The wonderful aspect of the Cross is that it makes us right with God through faith, no matter who we are, what we have done, or how  done are wired. As Paul says in 1 Cor 6:19, we become a temple of the Holy Spirit, and this leads to a process of transformation over time.

Position

If we start with the consequences of the Cross on our position, Scripture is rich with details on this. Here are just some examples of what Scripture says about us:

• I am God's child (John 1:12)

• I am Christ's friend (John 15:15)

• I am a member of Christ's Body (1 Corinthians 12:27)

• I am a citizen of heaven (Philippians 3:20)

• I am hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3)

• I am blessed in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3)

• I am chosen before the creation of the world (Ephesians 1:4, 11)

• I am alive with Christ (Ephesians 2:5)

• I am seated with Christ in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 2:6)

• I am God's workmanship (Ephesians 2:10)

• I am a member of God's household (Ephesians 2:19)

• I am a dwelling for the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 2:22)

I could go on with dozens of Scriptures.

The real challenge is learning to live out our position in Christ. Perhaps one of the most striking elements of the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15 is that neither the prodigal son nor the older son lives as a son in their Father’s house. After all, the Father says that He is always with His children and everything that is His is theirs too, but they don’t live like that. The prodigal son treats his father like an Automated Teller Machine, and his older brother lives like a hired worker.

The lifelong journey of salvation is, therefore, to come to understand what our position in Christ is and how to live from that place by walking in step with the Holy Spirit.

Purpose

As we come to grips with our position in Christ, we begin to realise that God does have specific gifts and a calling for us as individuals.

We see specific examples of calling and purpose in Scripture, like Isaiah being called in Isaiah 6, Jeremiah’s calling in Jeremiah 1, and Paul’s calling in Acts 9.

We also see in 2 Peter 1:10 that we are exhorted to be diligent in confirming our calling in the Lord. Paul exhorts Timothy to fan into flame the gift of God, and the scriptures in Romans 12:6-8, 1 Cor 12:4-12, and Ephesians 4:11-16 unpack the gifts of the Spirit.

As we live out of the position we all have in Christ, we begin to see that there is a specific calling or purpose for each person.

Spiritual Formation

This is where it gets tricky. There is a process of moving from being one kind of person to becoming another kind of person.

Paul says in Ephesians 4:22-24: “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

And in Romans 12:2: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

When we try to move from a place of internal wiring—across personality, work gearing, and soft skills—to a place of position and purpose in Christ, we hit rocky ground, perhaps most famously described by Paul in Romans 7 where he says from verse 15: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.”

In many ways, our internal wiring is a way to live in the world without God. It is self-reliance. And as Paul says in Romans 14:23: “Everything that does not come from faith is sin.”

This journey of spiritual formation plays out in stages. Janet Hagberg’s model in The Critical Journey describes these stages as follows:

1. Recognition of Faith: Recognising who God is.

2. Discipleship: Learning what it is to follow Jesus.

3. The Productive Life: Doing things for God.

4. The Journey Inwards: Discovering internal wiring in relation to identity in Christ.

The Wall: Hagberg says the Wall is the stopping place between Stages Four and Five. “It is the place in which our wills meet God’s will face to face and we are asked to relinquish our egos, our wounds, and all else that stands between us and God.”

5. The Journey Outward: Living from a place of acceptance of who we are in Christ.

6. Life of Love: Reflecting God’s characteristics to others.

There are other models too: Fowler’s stages of faith are related to physical age, and M. Scott Peck did a masterful piece of work relating spiritual development to psychological development.

A helpful comparison chart was posted on the internet, which I have included below.

What often happens is that the complexity of the deep work I have so briefly outlined above often only begins when life becomes really difficult. These could be during periods of:

• Deconstruction of faith.

• Hitting the Wall that Hagberg talks about.

• Suffering.

• Financial upheaval.

• A Dark Night of the Soul experience.

Unfortunately, we’re often not our best selves during such times, which makes it difficult to process the depth of this information. However, for many, they only get around to doing this deep work when they are under the pressure of such circumstances, either because they did not know about the mechanics of spiritual formation or because the work of spiritual formation seemed difficult with all the other things going on in our busy, connected lives today.

Nevertheless, spiritual formation is ultimately the pathway to process our personality, work gearing, soft skills, identity in Christ, calling, and stages of faith (life) in a way that leads to true transformation across the head, heart, and body elements of our makeup. This transformation ultimately changes how we think, feel, and act, bringing us more in line with who Christ is.