How a Good Identity Becomes Corrupt.
There are few things in life that hurt more than being rejected for who you are.
Can you name any? I suppose death and dying in a terrible way. But in general the greatest pains in life are cast in the arena of some form of rejection.
It may be easy to blame God, but what if there was another culprit? A sinister schemer that has infiltrated the human soul to the degree that it cost God His life in order to repair it.
We are told through the story of Adam and Eve that sin is that culprit. The rest of the Bible is the pain, hurt, and many forms of rejection that mankind endures because sin becomes part of who they are.
The New Testament goes so far to call us sinners.
How’s that for an identity?
We find out we are sinners but God has a plan, a hope, an answer to the devious nature of sin. The answer of course is Jesus!
So in one sense sin is good news. If it is a sin issue in my life, I can bring it to Jesus and find forgiveness, and life. If it is not sin, my options are limited for hope in my struggle.
Now, not every struggle is because sin, but if it is related to sin we should be happy to acknowledge it as such (at least when no one is looking) and receive God’s loving forgiveness as He helps us overcome our sin.
But why do we get all bent out of shape? Why do our emotions rise against anyone who tells us we are sinning? What about pastors who tell us we need to grow, and this is how we do it? Or a friend who says, ‘Should you really be doing that?”
In situations like those above, being judged makes us very emotional. Being judged in any way is too personal; who are they to say? If I have problems, I will find them and deal with them. This is not their job, but to ignore sin completely is very unloving. Just ask Jesus.
So true, it is not their job. But if anyone cares about you, they will also care about the things we need to work on and come alongside us to address the problem.
The underlying issue is that sin has corrupted our identity.
So now, every correction feels like a personal attack on who we are. Every correction is a reminder that maybe we are not lovable, acceptable, and competent to live life and add value to life. Sin, once again, has corrupted life. This is not the way it was supposed to be!
Our identity is under the corruption of sin. Jesus points to this when he says this in the gospel of Mark:
“… “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” ”
When Jesus says we “defile” ourselves, he might as well say we pollute or corrupt our very being. There is a danger to the soul that comes upon us as we sin; because sin is directly opposed to being created in God’s image for His glory.
In other words, sin corrupts our identity, how we see ourselves, how we feel about life and our decisions for our behaviors. Sin has weaved itself into us like our body has blood vessels that carry blood to each part of our body.
Sin has touched every thought in our minds.
Sin has distorted each emotion, as well as how we understand emotion.
And sin pollutes each of our actions and our motives for why we do things.
And we like to think sin has no bearing on our life, but in reality it is more like a relentless wind in a rainstorm as we walk from the car to the house. Whenever we struggle, we can rest assured that the power of sin will corrupt or at least try to corrupt what we think about and how we feel about it.
Sin sucks!
It sucks the life from our souls. It sucks good from our thoughts, emotions, and actions. It is a sucker!
Sin always ruins a good identity. Any identity that we build by ourselves will be touched by sin and pollute us to the point of leaving us dissatisfied and frustrated.
So IF we find our identity in being married, having kids, being smart, being a hard worker, being skinny, being the best at anything or everything, we will still have some significant issues with God until we rest “In Christ.”
Now when we say to rest “in Christ,” sin will bring thoughts to our minds like “Rest “in Christ, and ____________.” We always want to add something to complete Christ. We find it hard to rest in Him. We may even say things like “God loves me, but ________.”
Sin will bring thoughts to our minds that affect our emotions and even give us ideas for action that will fight against the truth of God as revealed in scripture.
The hardest thing you will ever do is change your belief system from self-guided to Christ-guided. Because dealing with what we believe is the foundational change, we need to make. Sin has a strong foundation in the human soul.
Our only hope is to hope in Christ, for deliverance!
We need to Xchange a self-driven life for a Christ-driven life, literally on a moment-by-moment basis.
Sin is relentless and will put on its full display of corrupting power in us by distorting the truth of God in one of three ways or all three ways if we are under severe attack.
The power of sin always targets our thoughts, emotions, and actions and seeks to corrupt, pollute, defile, and make unclean God’s way of doing things.
Sin always reminds us that we are so unloveable to God and others. We are so unworthy of acceptance we shouldn’t burden God with our requests.
And sin will also remind us that if we fail one time, we will probably fail the next time as well, so give up and pray God can put up with you.
Indeed the power of sin on full display as it attacks us through our identity.
As bad as sin is, there is always hope.
Hope in Christ, His gospel of grace. Sin stands no chance around the grace and presence of the Savior, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and leaves us Himself through the presence of the Holy Spirit, in us the Children of God!
The only prerequisite to having hope is yielding to Jesus and what he accomplished for us on the cross. His death, burial, and resurrection are the hope of all humanity and are of primary importance when seeking to build your identity as an image-bearer of God!
The Xchange exists to point us back to the cross and realize that “in Christ” we have hope against the corrupting, polluting and perverting power of sin! This is our fight, to walk by faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross and in the resurrection!
May God’s grace keep you going in your quest for a healthy identity.
Together we can live resurrected!
In Him,
Scott