You Are Not Who You Were Before

Many of the problems that plague us as Christians begin with misplaced identity.

We forget who we are as chosen, purchased and commissioned children of God, and think of ourselves primarily through the lens of something else—success at work, the well-being of our children, the fruitfulness of our ministry, our feelings of fulfillment or our ability to achieve our goals and dreams. We may even see ourselves almost exclusively through our sin (we are defined by our greatest temptation or besetting struggle), or through our suffering (we are defined by the greatest distress we experience).

When the apostle Peter wrote his first of two letters, he was writing to followers of Christ under siege—with relentless affliction, with persistent persecution, with tenacious temptation. Suffering screamed that they were forgotten or unloved. Their opponents shouted that they had abandoned their faith, their families and their communities, and that they’d fallen for a horrible fraud. And Satan whispered that nothing had changed, that they were who they’d always been.

As the believers were assaulted with these messages, Peter intercepts their missiles with promises from heaven: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9). You are not who you were. You are not what you feel. You are not where you’re tempted to fall. Now, you are his. Read More

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