Personal identity is who you are, what you think about yourself, the characteristics that define you, and the way you are viewed by the world. From a legal standpoint, your identity is your full name, your date and place of birth, your social security number, your drivers license number, and other identification papers. An identity crisis is “a developmental event that involves a person questioning their sense of self or place in the world.”
Some of the symptoms of an identity crisis are: Questioning your character, questioning your purpose or passion in life, questioning your values, being unsatisfied with your life, all of which can cause anxiety and unrest. One of the most often seen symptoms of an identity crisis is altering your values or changing your lifestyle frequently to match the world around you.
Christians should never have an identity crisis because our identity is in Christ.
“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Before you or I became a Christian, we were lost in darkness, dead in “trespasses and sins,” all of which identified us with Satan. However, “God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:4-5, 10)
Our identity in Christ has both inward and outward attributes that make our identification very clear. Ephesians chapter 1 spells out some of those attributes: Spiritual blessings (vs 3), chosen (vs 4), predestined and adopted (vs 5), redeemed and forgiven (vs 7), lavished with grace (vs 7), to know God’s will (vs 9), have an inheritance (vs 9), and sealed by the Holy Spirit (vs 13). Now that’s an identity worth having!
Some outward signs of a Christian’s identity are “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance” (Galatians 5:22-23). Satan can cause us to have an identity crisis by getting us to question many things about our Christian life: its values, our purpose in life, and more. He will push us to alter our values so that we will fit in with the world around us. He wants us to live for self, to pursue pleasure, to walk and talk like the world, thereby rendering us ineffective as a Christian. Don’t let that happen! Make sure that the behaviors and characteristics of your life reveal your true identity in Christ. Don’t ever let Satan take that away!
“Now I belong to Jesus,
Jesus belongs to me,
Not for the years of time alone,
But for eternity.”