Under a new identity by Deon Crafford

Colossians 2:6-10 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.

Philippians 2:5-8 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

“Who are you, what do you do, where do you come from” – the questions asked of most people when being encountered for the first time. These questions are often the overt niceties of more probing investigations into another. The cover for “are you known or famous, do you have status or wealth that make you worth knowing and do you have family or school tie roots that make it worth my while to engage you?” We’re always on some kind of public display in this world because people generally determine their investment in engagement by the perceived value of another’s identity. A mouthful indeed, but something we’ve all witnessed and quite likely have also applied in our lives in some form or another.

In Jesus Christ we find the antithesis of this worldly approach. What He holds out to us is an identity that has little to do with His own importance, and everything to do with serving the desires of our Father in Heaven – desires that entail our salvation. When Jesus engages each one of us and seals the engagement with His life, he cares little about how important or not we think we are, what the main endeavours of our life may be at this point, how morally qualified we are and whether we have a genealogy of faithful religious service. On the contrary, we have to believe that He is only interested – and then obsessively so – with whom, where and how we’d be going henceforth. Jesus invites us to transform our worldly identity into a Christlike identity – from which would radiate our rootedness in His Person. When we’re grafted into Him, we can do no other than be Him, even though we may constantly have to fight off the identity confusion that the world rubs off on us.

When I am rooted in Christ, adopting His identity as my own, everything about me changes or is being recalibrated in love, humility and service. It is not an identity of weakness, but of strength in purpose, contentment and certainty. It requires no recluse, but unconfined public display. If I am rooted in Christ my answer to the opening questions are, “ I am a grateful recipient of immeasurable grace; I am using my life to put Christ on display to the world; and I come from nothing but now have everything”.

Love to all