Who are You?

Shakespeare said, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” This famous idiom exemplifies the common usage of statements like, “What’s in a name,” and, “Call a spade a spade.” Of course, the scriptures were way ahead of culture because nature truisms were already commonplace like, “Can an Ethiopian change the color of his skin? Can a leopard remove its spots?” (Jeremiah 13:23b) and “As a dog returns to its vomit, so also a fool repeats his foolishness.” (Proverbs 26:11). There is a subtle power in language usage like this. Abraham Lincoln (apocryphally) was fond of asking “How many legs does a horse have if you call its tail a leg?” His answer: “Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it one.”

These are just a few examples of the different effective ways of expressing the powerful potential and revelatory simplicity of identity. President Lincoln used his euphemistic question towards his antagonists who argued that he should just leave the slavery issue alone because the slaves were already living in a type of freedom. What Lincoln’s statement intended to illustrate is that you can call it, “freedom,” but that does not make it truly freedom.

How true this is in today’s culture.

You can call a boy a “girl” but…
You can call it a “vaccine” but…
You can call abortion “health care” but…
You can call grooming “public education” but…
You can call a church-goer a “Christian” but…
You can call that sin, addiction, habit, or attitude, “not that bad” but…

In the misunderstood section of the Gospel of Matthew, at the end of the eternally viral, “sermon on the mount,” where the King laid out the constitution for the Kingdom, we come to these verses in chapter seven:

You will recognize them by their fruit. Grapes are not gathered from thorns or figs from thistles, are they? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree is not able to bear bad fruit, nor a bad tree to bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will recognize them by their fruit. 
Matthew 7:16-20 NET

For the fragile, immature, and self-righteous passer-by, this is the chapter that their favorite half-verse starts off. You know, the snide justification retort quotation of, “judge not,” followed by the personal application salve of, “Don’t judge me!” This partial quote is most often in response to an inquiry about why some area of their life is not aligning with the righteous standards of an authentic Christ follower who should be disciplining their life wholly towards conformity to the ways, identity, and standards of the Master. Yet here, Jesus the Judge gives the proper scales of righteous judgment. To quote another true idiom, “If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…” you know the rest. So do the eyes of everyone around us.

Identity can be suppressed, misrepresented, cross-dressed, chemically altered, religiously oppressed, societally pressured, self-justified, and even eventually accepted. But, the horse still has four legs and the repression of the quack does not change the identity of the duck. Soooo… who are you… really? Strip away the exterior paint, wash away the dirt of the earth, let down your Facebook profile pic projection, cease the cool-kid “I got this” façade, and step outside of the privacy-fenced safe space. What is the truth?

Plastic and fake are the cultural standards. This is why transparency and authenticity are so rare.

So from now on we regard no one according to the flesh. Although we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come!
2 Corinthians 5:16-17

These verses conclude that “who” you are is determined by “who” you are in, or “who” is in you… location, location, location. If Christ is the Creator in Genesis, then it makes rational sense that if we are IN the Creator, then we must be a NEW creation. This completely affects identity because now it is only determined by the Creator that we are in. So, what does this New Creation identity identify as?

We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life.
Romans 6:4 BSB

We have a dire need to really know our identity by looking at where we are living. When we have purposefully surrounded our existence with the influence and values of the world, we are headed in the wrong direction behind the steering wheel of a U-Haul.

If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
John 15:19 BSB

This present evil world wants to define us by the categories, thinking, and ways typical of that vomit-seeking dog. But Christ created us in His new image that resurrects us from the canine species into the divine nature.

Surely you heard of Him and were taught in Him— in keeping with the truth that is in Jesus— to put off your former way of life, your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;  to be renewed in the spirit of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in TRUE righteousness and holiness.
Ephesians 4:21-24 BSB

Read that one again… I could do this all day. The Word of God is the encyclopedia of our identity. True righteousness and holiness are our waddle and quack. The world is desperately trying to teach us to squeak like a mouse in a lab being chaotically tortured for the selfish gains of the mad scientists funded by the snake and justified by the slogan, “It is all for your own good (health)(safety)(betterment).” They want you to admit you are an addict. They want you to submit to financial slavery. They want you to bow down to the fear of their lies. They want you to accept your allotted new normal. They want you to come to them for life, purpose, security, and love. They want you to return to their vomit. But that is not WHO we are, Beloved.

Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. Just as no branch can bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me.
John 15:4 BSB

Jesus is the identity, the location, the root, the real. He is where our true character comes from. If it ain’t true about Him, it ain’t true about you. 

There is no sickness in Him. 
There is no sin in Him. 
There is no quit in Him. 
There is no oppression in Him. 
There is no fear in Him.

We are IN HIM. Really…

I pray this message is more to you than just some words on a screen…

I love the real you!
Steve