Shofar Stellenbosch | Our FatherSample

Devotional: Our Father Who Shapes Our Identity 

We are God’s poem. He created us as His masterpiece to do good works. Remember that we were made in the image of God. You are not a mistake and God does not make junk. Our self-image is shaped by our background. Our identity is formed mainly through the way we are brought up. In a sense, we are all the product of our past. Some other things that form our identity are: 

• People at school
• Our culture
• Our religious background
• Our experiences (good and bad) 

Know that you are special and unique to God. There is no one on earth with the same fingerprint as you. 

We often get the message from our parents that we will be accepted if we make the football team or achieve good results in the exams. Our society is very much driven by performance and fear. Unfortunately, this makes us feel that we need to perform to be accepted by our Father. 

If both parents do not satisfy our need for love and acceptance as a child, we will seek to fill the emotional void with someone or something else. 

We must learn to receive from God and others because any love relationship consists of both the giving and receiving of love. Performance-driven relationships make us want to earn things and lead to an inability to receive God’s love. Because of this, many people struggle to enter into the rest and peace of God. Dead religion tells us that divine love and acceptance is only achieved through our performance, but in fact, we cannot earn it. God loves and accepts us in spite of what we do or don’t do. 

We are not what we do or the image that we try to live up to. Neither do we derive our identity from the people we know, what we have, who we influence or from our experiences. We must begin to identify with the way God sees us. Be careful not to fall into trying to achieve a good self-image - our identity in Christ is not based on a feel-good experience. 

You are: 

• A spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3)
• Predestined (Ephesians 1:5)
• Redeemed (Ephesians 1:7)
• Sealed (Ephesians 1:13)
• Raised with Christ (Ephesians 2:6)
• Complete in Him (Colossians 2:6)
• Seated with Christ (Ephesians 2:6)
• God’s workmanship (Ephesians 2:10)
• Born of God

Reflective questions:

1. What are the things that shaped you the most?
2. How do you respond when you are given a gift that you did not earn? Do you feel the need to repay the giver?
3. What things do you still do to try and earn God’s acceptance?