Bask in Your Identity
Is it selfish and self-centred to spend time reflecting on and enjoying the new identity we receive in Christ? I’ve sometimes heard people suggest it is. To do so, some would claim, is to put ourselves at the centre rather than God. It is to imply that we are more important than him, and that the gospel is about us rather than about God. To focus on ourselves is to come perilously close to the very heart of sin – putting something other than God in God’s place.
I get these concerns. I really do. Many of us live in cultures that are me-obsessed. We’re surrounded by the message that what really matters is me as an individual, my rights, my happiness, and my freedom to be true to myself. There’s no doubt that we live in a culture that is unhealthily me-obsessed.
But is that the sort of attitude we’re enacting when we reflect on and enjoy Christian identity? Is it just a Christian form of me-obsession? I guess it could become so, but I’m not convinced it has to be. In fact, I think it can be a good and important thing. I think it’s important that we bask in our new identity.
Think of a plant. Plants bask in the sunshine (when they get the chance). They enjoy it, and they lap it up. But we don’t criticise plants for basking in the sunshine. We don’t accuse them of being selfish. Why not? Because we know that their basking is purposeful. It does something. As they bask in the sun, they grow and bear fruit.
The same is true for us when we bask in the identity we receive through the gospel. Basking isn’t just a selfish or self-centred act. It does something. As we bask in the truth of who we are, we grow, and we bear fruit.
For Christians, what we do flows out of who we are as God’s new creations (Ephesians 2:10), and that means that knowing who we are and experiencing who we are is vitally important. To bask in our God-given identity is not selfish or self-centred, it’s part of what helps us to become the people who God wants us to be. In doing so, we become the sort people whom others look upon and see God. We become the sort of people who bring him glory by being satisfied in him. We become the people he has made – and remade – us to be. And because Christian identity is rooted in God – what he has done and what he says – to bask in Christian identity is not just to look in at ourselves, it is, at the same time, to look up to God.
So, bask in your identity. Revel in it. Savour it. Relish it. Enjoy it. As you do, you’ll grow, you’ll bear fruit, and you’ll bring glory to God.