Where Is Your Identity?
Grant Miller // UGA Student & College Intern
Hey there! My name is Grant Miller (but I also go by many other names… including but certainly not limited to… Grass, Gravy, Garganchuon, Grint, Gregos, Grunter, Grade, Gross, Gradient, Gerald, Grizzle, Gragante, G Man, G Money, Big G, George, Giuseppe, Gourd, Great, Goat, Green, Gront, Ferris, Grindstone, Grantavious, Gazpacho, Google, Groog, Lrant, Egregious, Garbanzo Bean, El Guapo, Gordo, BobBob, Brotato Chip, Granter the Enchanter, G Swizzle, Jared, Gragananant, Greed, Gelato, Gork, Grag, Grant-Cracker, Grantnite, Gargantuan Sauce, Garage, Gregus, Grungle, Garent, Gorgeous, Grantasaurus Rex, Grunk, Grantamos, Grey’s Anatomy, Grnt, Grantamus, Grantholomeu, Lugnut, Granty, GDP (or Grant Domestic Product), Grantpa, Gillette, Gorgenant, Grab, Greta Thunberg, Grunt, Gragnart, Grantalones, Grudge, Grung, Garganatius, Grungus, Gorgonzola, Garnt, Gernt, Gripe, Gregory, Greg, and Phil)…
If you really read each and every one of those… I am so so sorry, and I am concerned for you. If you decided to skip reading them entirely, I can’t say I blame you. But just rest assured that yes, I have been called each of these names at least once, and if you were to shout any one of them in public, I would quickly turn around, knowing you’re talking to me.
Now, believe it or not, this goofy little intro does serve a purpose other than (hopefully) making you laugh and showcasing my name repertoire… because I want to talk about identity.
My one precious hope, for the rest of the time you spend reading this blog post, is that no matter where you’re at in your life (a struggling Christian or a thriving one, an unbelieving soul or a searching one) God in his irrepressibly redeeming nature would somehow take the scatter-brained thoughts and makeshift wisdom of a sinner like me, and miraculously transform your heart and begin or continue to cleave it firmly to His. Because the only way we can move from darkness into light is if the Lord of light and everything good, pulls us out of the shadows and hems us into His loving heart. It has nothing to do with our capabilities, our strength, our wisdom, or our willpower to overcome sin, but it has everything to do with His irrevocable saving hand.
That is our identity, my friend. It’s in Him and Him alone, if our faith and souls are surrendered to the saving act of His son, Jesus Christ.
If that’s more of a reminder to you than a new revelation, then thanks be to God! But if the very idea of finding identity externally is something new to you, then I’d be delighted to point you to where I got such a countercultural idea. If you have a Bible, I’d encourage you to open it up right now, and flip to Ephesians chapter 2. And if you don’t have a Bible, you needn’t worry. I’ll explain what you need to know.
Ephesians 2:1 “As for you, you were dead…”
That’s it. Let’s stop right there before continuing… Ponder right now… what does it mean to be dead? What does this verse not say? It doesn’t say “you were clinging on to life.” It doesn’t say “you were almost dead.” It doesn’t say “you were sick.” It doesn’t say “you were in trouble but there’s a way to save yourself.” It says, very plainly and quite bluntly… You. Were. Dead.
It’s scary, and I draw attention to this morbid word, because in the same way that a fish that’s always lived in the ocean does not know it’s wet, we were born into a corrupt, sinful, and dead world, unable to comprehend the full nature of death and evil because it’s all we’ve ever known.
Here’s another metaphor for you… Think about a toddler, dressed up in his little overalls, an extra small button up shirt, and with his hair in a combover, on his way to church with his loving Christian parents… cute right?
NO!
WRONG! SO WRONG!
That baby knows how to be needy, demanding, and self-centered before it knows how to walk! That same morning, he probably cried for breakfast ten minutes after being fed! Pastor Voddie Baucham calls babies “vipers in diapers.” Hehe. It’s funny, but the point is serious. Sin is inherent with everything walking on this earth, even adorable babies, meaning that we are condemned and dead from the start. In the same sermon, Baucham explains in excellent detail the three staples of evil which hem us in to our sinful nature, and how we so ignorantly believe that attempting to individually conquer or escape any one of those three things can save us.
If you isolate yourself from the evils of the world, going into the middle of the woods and avoiding any contact with the creations of man, the temptations and waking evil of the flesh and the devil still subjugate your heart. If you look at yourself in the mirror, every morning and repeat “I can do this. I can do this,” watching motivational videos and stirring up your will power to conquer your flesh, the world and the devil will still overtake you, because your willpower is unable to overcome the forces of evil. If you acknowledge the devil’s presence and influence, running from him daily, your already poisoned mind and the evil world around you will take you back to square one.
We are hemmed in on all sides. Winning is NOT possible. It’s just not. I repeat, as Ephesians 2 says, “you were dead.” A dead man cannot save himself. Because well… he’s dead. Our identity is that of a dead person…
But let’s keep reading, because “you were dead,” is past tense right? Could that mean something happened to change our dead state?
Verse 3, “All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest we were by nature deserving of wrath…”
“BUT…” (Verse 4).
“Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich and mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions…”
And here’s the real kicker…
“it is by GRACE you have been saved” (Verse 5).
GRACE. Not grace and then works. Not works and then grace. Just… grace. God has offered His son as a living sacrifice for your tattered life, so that if you believe in His resurrection, God will look upon you and see not the broken life you’ve lived, but the perfectly sanctified life of His son, Jesus Christ!
My whole life, even after becoming a Christian, I have battled against a false gospel that tells me that even though God has saved me, I am required to go to church and I am required to spread the Gospel and I am required to live a righteous life. But no, I get to go to church, and I get to spread the Gospel and I get to live a righteous life. Because each of those things has been given to me, not earned. Many people look at Christian lifestyles and immediately see a set of rules that restricts them from living the life they want to live. But when God authored the ten commandments and when God authored the outline for living a New Testament Christian life, he never intended it to be seen as a complicated pathway to salvation. The purpose of these “rules” was never intended to be our identity.
Look at Romans 5:20-21
“The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
The purpose of the law was to show us that we are incapable of following it! It is a gift to beleaguered sinners like you and me who are hemmed in and unable to locate the shallow limits of our willpower and self-righteousness.
This doesn’t mean we should continue sinning, as Paul further explains in Romans 6, but it does mean that the compass of our longing for salvation and peace should be pointed to someone who can fulfill the law – Jesus Christ.
Therefore, here at the end of my little deep dive into identity, I encourage you, the reader, to ponder these verses and these truths more deeply. Where do you put your identity? Is it in the things of this world that are temporary and fading? Success. Fame. Money. Popularity. Self-Righteousness. Pleasure… These things seek to destroy you and rob you of your joy… Or is your identity in Christ Jesus, the only one who can drive away evil and retrieve us from the world and its principalities, plunging us into His heart and giving us the power to step into eternal kingship with Him?
These are heavy questions and cannot be answered in a quick sit-down. So I implore you, my friend, on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God and seek out someone who has pondered these questions before. I myself, would be thrilled to entertain any questions you have, and if these questions aren’t new to you, I would still welcome any conversation you have to offer. And if you are the reader who has already pondered these questions, take courage and share with someone today that their burden can be relieved. It is our Matthew 28 calling, after all :)
God bless, and may His light forever illuminate your path!
Also, I wanted to include the link to Voddie Baucham’s Sermon, “The World, The Flesh, and The Devil.” If you watch it you’ll quickly realize this post is heavily inspired by His own words. But there’s so much more truth to be explored in His video!
Grant is a third year Management major at the University of Georgia and a College Intern at Watkinsville this year. In his free time, he enjoys playing the piano, spending time with friends, and breaking out dance moves at unexpected times. He spends his Wednesdays hanging out at the Woelfl-Bates Tribe, and loves talking about the Lord!
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