Wake Up Your True Identity

Who are you, really? Many of us try to answer that question with our job title, our family story, or even the results of a personality test. But those things don’t define your true identity.

We’ve all picked up labels that feel permanent: Addiction runs in my family…I’m a child of divorce…I’ll always be anxious…This disease is in my bloodline. These labels may sound logical, but they are lies. Before Christ, they might have defined you. But when you belong to Him, you’re given a new identity. You are no longer a slave to sin or to your past. You are a child of God, a new creation, set apart for His purposes.

God has given each of us talents, strengths, and gifts, but those are not our identity either. They are pieces of Himself entrusted to us, meant to reflect His nature and bring glory back to Him. Your voice, your creativity, your leadership, your compassion—these are not badges to define you but mirrors designed to reveal Him.

Every label, every strength, every weakness, every descriptor must be held up to one simple standard: Am I reflecting the character of Jesus in how I live?

And if Jesus is the standard, then what kind of life should we be reflecting? Am I loving people the way He loves—sacrificially, without condition? Am I moved with compassion the way He was, slowing down to notice the person in front of me? Was Jesus ever too busy, too distracted, or too self-absorbed to stop and care for someone? Never. His life was marked by love, presence, and obedience to the Father.

That’s our sacred identity: to mirror Him. Not our past, not our labels, not even our gifts, but Christ in us. When we wake up to that truth, we stop chasing false identities and start living in the freedom of who we really are.

Reflect: What talent, strength, or label are you most tempted to cling to as your identity? How might it look different if you used it instead as a mirror to reflect Jesus?