Last spring, I was in a workshop at a women’s conference
on Kingdom Living. At the beginning of the hour, the speaker asked us to write
down the answer to the question, “Who am I?” I wrote: Daughter of the King,
wife, mom, teacher, defeated/discouraged, sinner. While most of them are fairly
accurate descriptions, they do not all define me. There is a big difference
between goals, jobs/titles, and our identities, but it is so easy to lose focus
(if we ever had it to begin with) and place our identity where it does not
belong.
I want to say first that being a mom is a good thing and a
great goal to have and achieve, but to find our only identity and worth in that
is actually wrong, maybe even sinful. When we start to place our identities in
what we do or the positions we hold here on earth, we enter a works-based
religion because we are defined by what we do. Unfortunately, it doesn’t end
there, because if our identity is based on what we do, then it will naturally
be fed by how we do it. If I let
motherhood define me, then my worth and value will be based on how good of a
mother I think I am which creates a downward spiral because the only way to
gauge how good of a mother I am is by comparing myself with other moms. No
matter where we are, who we know, or what we do, we will always find people whom
we exceed, but there will also always be people who exceed us, if we’re honest.
Then we start the top-this/comparison game. I’m sure that I could come up with
some way in which I do not measure up to every mother I know.
While I am speaking to moms here, this principle applies to
everyone. If Pastor placed his identity in being a pastor, his worth would be
based on how many positive reactions he had from his sermons, how many new
converts were made each year, and how many people attended each service. If my
husband placed his identity in being a logger, then he would define himself by
how well he performed his job and how much money he made. This practice leads
to spirits of depression (if we feel we don’t measure up) or pride and
criticism (if we think we are better than everyone else). Neither of those are
godly, and only lead to ungodly attitudes of doubt, insecurity, put-downs, and
arrogance because we constantly have to prove that we are good enough, which
ironically makes us perform worse than we would if we were simply confident in
who we are and not worried about how we measure up.
Sadly, this mentality pervades not only our society but the
church at large. I think that the identity of motherhood is especially
prevalent in the church. The problem with it is that security and confidence
can never be achieved that way. It will cause a young lady to not feel like she
is enough because she is single, and to long for the day when she can be
married so that she can be whole and will spend her whole life up to that point
looking forward and missing out on the time she has. I am not saying there is
anything wrong with preparing for marriage, that is good and right, but feeling
that one is not good enough being single is not. Finally, the girl is married,
but unfortunately does not remain satisfied because she is not a mother. Soon
her domestic tranquility is disrupted by the desire for children, and she feels
she is not complete or good enough until she has children. Finally, she becomes
pregnant and has a child and the joys of motherhood surround her. Sadly, that
does not last long because her peace is based on her circumstances. Her baby
isn’t nursing well, she’s not doing all the things the people around think she
should be doing to raise her child, she is not perfectly and constantly happy
in her role, so she struggles and tries harder to be better. The unfortunate
result of this is only worry and disruption in her marriage because she is
giving so much to her child that her husband feels neglected, so their marital
bliss diminishes. Rather than seeing the true source of her dissatisfaction,
she thinks she just needs more children. So, she has more, but is no closer to
feeling fulfilled or worthwhile. Her husband may become detached or resentful
and her children are natural born sinners, not the perfect little cherubs she
expected. So, they grow and make mistakes and disobey, and while things may
improve, she always questions if it is enough, if she is enough. Finally, the
children grow up into successful adults and she begins to feel that she has
done well only to have them leave the house to make homes and lives of their
own. While she is glad for this, her insecurities and dissatisfaction return
because she has an empty home. She is still a mother, but that is not really
her job anymore and she no longer feels fulfilled. Often those feelings persist
for the rest of her life to some degree unless she is able to find some other
job or purpose to fill her life. Ironically, those feelings of doubt and
insecurity cause her to “perform” worse than she would otherwise because she is
living defeated, trying to earn or prove her worth, rather than living in the
fullness God intended for her. Do you see the trend here? Basing our identities
in what we do never ends. We are never satisfied with reaching our goal because
we are constantly needing to prove our worth, so once we accomplish one goal,
we have to find another. What we do is never enough, nor was it ever meant to
be.
This story is not confined to motherhood, but could play out
in any profession, no matter how noble or worthwhile it may be. I was talking
with a friend about this, how women are often viewed as being less-than because
they have no children or remain unmarried for whatever reason. Should a woman
marry the first scum bag that comes along just so she does not bear the “shame”
of singleness? If it is God’s plan for her to marry later in life, should we
judge her for being obedient just because it does not fit into our ideology? I
know several women who married “later” in life, and none of them would
sacrifice the marriage they have in order to have married at a younger age. They
consider it a blessing rather than a curse. We discussed the idea of where this
view came from, when did it start and what grounds does it have?
Genesis 3:16-19 NASB
To the
woman He said,
“I will
greatly multiply
Your pain
in childbirth,
In pain you will bring forth
children;
Yet your desire will be for your
husband,
And he will rule over you.”
Then to Adam He said, “Because you
have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about
which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’;
Cursed is the ground because of
you;
In toil you will eat of it
All the days of your life.
Both thorns and thistles it shall
grow for you;
And you will eat the plants of the
field;
By the sweat of your face
You will eat bread,
Till you return to the ground,
Because from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return.”
This tendency to find our identity in what we do (for women
in childbearing but also for men in their work) goes all the way back to the
beginning. Shortly after Adam and Eve sinned, they were cursed because of that
sin. See this desire or need to be defined by what we do is a result of the
curse, not because God created us to be that way, but as a result of sin. It
broke that unity and relationship with God where mankind was secure and
fulfilled in Him alone. The desire to be self-sufficient and independent of God
which brought on sin gave birth to the need to prove our worth on our own apart
from God. Because of that brokenness and disunity, we are insecure because we
lost that security in our relationship with God. Unfortunately, we try to find
that identity and worth in ourselves instead of looking to the One who defines
us.
Genesis 1:27-28a, 31a NASB
God created man in His own image,
in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God
blessed them…God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.
This desire to find our identity stems from a works-based
religion. I’m sure none of you would say that you believe you must earn your
salvation, but do you live that way? If we can’t and shouldn’t earn our salvation,
then we can’t and shouldn’t try to earn our identity or prove our worth.
Nothing in us is good enough on our own, as it says in Romans 3:10 “there is
none righteous, not even one” and God does not love us or choose us because we are
better than anyone else.
Deuteronomy 7:7-8a NASB
The Lord did not set His love on
you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for
you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the Lord loved you.
Ephesians 1:4-6 (emphasis
added)
[God] chose us in Him before the
foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In
love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according
to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace,
which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
While the first verse was spoken to Israel, I believe the principle
still applies. He did not choose us because we were so special or better than
anyone else, but simply because He loved us. He knew every single person in history
before history. Before the beginning of the world, He knew each of us and loved
us because He made us, even if we reject Him. His love is so great that He died
so that we could be with Him, to repair the damage caused by our own sin
against Him.
I read in a book about Acceptable Sins that the best
way to defeat sin in our lives is to preach the Gospel to ourselves daily and
to memorize verses to that effect. One of the best passages of Scripture which
most clearly depicts the Gospel is:
Ephesians 2:1-9
And you were dead in your
trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of
this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that
is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly
lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging in the desires of the flesh and of
the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in
mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead
in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have
been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly
places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the
surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by
grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the
gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
We were nothing before God, less than nothing. We were His
enemies. Yet because of His love for us, Jesus died so that He could spend the
rest of eternity lavishing us with His blessings! If God did not want us to
earn our salvation, if He died so that we could be saved, if He did not require
anything of us to become His children, why would He then require us to earn our
worth or identity as His children? After all of that would He want us to live
for the purpose of proving our worth?
At this point some may bring up 1 Timothy 2:15 which says
that “women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue
in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.” But I will argue that this
is not talking about salvation or worth. The Bible clearly says we are not
saved by works. If we are not saved by works, then it is obviously not
referring to salvation.
What does it mean is that we are preserved or sanctified
through having children? Sanctification is the process by which we are made
more like God. It is something God does through our submission to Him on a daily
basis and is completed when we reach Heaven. I’m sure every mother will attest
to the fact that raising children and teaching them to be godly only reveals to
us how very ungodly we are. Our flaws are very amply exposed in those wonderful
little copies of ourselves for all to see, and hopefully it motivates us to
correct our own flaws while we attempt to train our children. I love the quote
from Little Women when Jo and Marmee
are talking about Jo’s anger, which was just like her mother’s, and the way
that Mr. March helped her over come it.
“He helped and comforted me and
showed me that I must try to practice all the virtues I would have my little
girls possess, for I was their example. It was easier to try for your sakes
than for my own. A startled or surprised look from one of you when I spoke sharply
rebuked me more than any words could have done, and the love, respect, and
confidence of my children was the sweetest reward I could receive for my efforts
to be the woman I would have them copy.”
Elisabeth Elliot once said:
The process of shaping the child shapes also the mother
herself. Reverence for her sacred burden calls her to all that is pure and
good, that she may teach primarily by her own humble, daily example.
Another way in which “women will be preserved through the
bearing of children” is in a reversal of the curse in a sense. Because we are
cursed by the fall in having great pain in childbirth (I think men got off easy
on that one), the joys of having that child are greater for the mother than the
father for that reason. The joy of having children offsets the pain of the
curse and makes it more bearable. It is not saying that we earn salvation by
having children, or that we are of more value for raising children, but that
the affects of the curse are lessened through having children. (John Piper has
a great article on this verse on His website “Desiring God.”)
Romans 8:35-39
Who will separate us from the love
of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness,
or peril, or sword? Just as it is written,
“For Your sake we are being put to
death all day long;
We were considered as sheep to be
slaughtered.”
But in all these things we overwhelmingly
conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor
life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come,
nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to
separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Nothing can change how God loves us. Nothing we do can
lessen His love or make it greater.
1 John 4:10,19
In this is love, not that we loved
God, but that He loved us and sent His son to be the propitiation for our
sins…We love because He first loved us.
We love because He FIRST loved us. He loved us before we had
kids, while we were still sinners, while we were His enemies. His love is not
based on our performance anymore than our love for our children, spouses or
family members are based on their performance. If it were based on performance,
it would not be love. He created us because He wanted relationship with us, not
so we could work and do things for Him. We were created to love Him. Yes, there
are many verses talking about how we need to bear good fruit and do good works
which He planned for us, but those should be the result of His love, not to
earn it.
John 15:8
My Father is glorified by this,
that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.
But look at verse 5, just before this:
John 15:5 (emphasis added)
I am the vine, you are the
branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart
from Me you can do nothing.
Philippians 1:9-11
And this I pray, that your love may
abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you
may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless
until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness
which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Notice that according to these verses that fruit which we
are supposed to bear comes through Christ, through abiding in Him. Abiding is
that practicing of being in constant communion with God. It literally means to
“remain or stay”. Basically, it is living in Christ on a moment-by-moment
basis, intentionally being mindful of Him and staying connected with Him at all
times. It is not by trying to be better, working harder or any amount of effort
on our part. It is by being in Him in
the fullest sense. God’s focus is on our being
more than our doing. That is why most
of Paul’s letters, including Ephesians, focus on who we are in the first half and
then talk about how we should live in the second half. What we do is the
natural by product of who we are.
A few years ago, Ephesians 2:10 kept popping up over the
course of several days. This usually means that God has a point to make so I
prayed and watched to see what it was. I thought God had some new job or “work”
for me to do. Two or three weeks went by, and I didn’t find anything. Then one
day I read a book where the author quoted the verse in a different translation
than I was used to, and it blew me away. The New Living begins the verse this
way:
For we are God’s masterpiece…NLT
I realized then that God’s focus for me in bringing that
verse to my attention was not in “doing” but in “being.” He wanted me to focus on
the fact that I am His masterpiece. My identity and worth are not based on what
I do or how well I do it. It is all based on the One who made me. It is based
on my relationship with Him as His adopted and beloved child. When I wrote
those definitions of who I am at the conference, the title “daughter of the
King” was a textbook answer. It was something I knew to be true, but not really
how I saw myself. God has been teaching me slowly to see that His definition of
me and my worth is the only one that matters.
While most of the definitions I used did describe me in some
way, there is one that is completely untrue. That one is “sinner.” Please
believe that I am not saying I am without sin. What I mean is that I no longer
carry that title. See, sinners are people who are not saved, people in bondage
to sin. Once we believe in Christ and give our lives to Him, once we are given
the title “child of God”, we become saints. Albeit we are saints who sin, but
we are no longer sinners, no longer people bound to sin and unable to love or
follow God or turn away from sin. You may think this is a pointless debate on
semantics, but it makes a profound difference because as saints we are no
longer defined by our sin. We still fall into temptation and sin, but we are no
longer controlled by it. We are defined and controlled by God’s Spirit in us.
Paul obviously held that view because several of his epistles were addressed to
“the saints” in that city.
When we accept Jesus’ sacrifice for our sin, to pay the debt
we owe, and are given new life in God, we are no longer bound to sin or defined
by what we do. We cannot earn it, but it is ours. It is kind of like having an
honorary doctorate, except in this university the test is pass/fail and only
perfection will make the grade. So, everyone is trying for this doctorate
(which is heaven), but we can never be good enough on our own. None of our
efforts will ever be good enough because they are tainted by our sin. The only
way to receive this degree is through Christ. If we accept His help, He does
the work for us, and we submit the paper written by Him but under our name.
Then we are accepted and receive the degree without having done anything to
earn it. Of course, we should work with Him and learn what we can for our own
benefit, but our work will not affect our grade. That is basically
righteousness, having a right standing before God based on Jesus’ perfection.
During a study on Romans, I learned about this symbol. It is
the Chinese word for “righteousness” and is made of two characters: lamb over
me. When Christian missionaries first arrived in China there was no word in the
language for righteousness, but they had this practice with sheep. If a mother
lost her lamb and they wanted her to adopt an orphan, the easiest way to do
that is to take the hide off the dead lamb and tie it on the back of the orphan.
Livestock animals recognize others by their scent, not sight, so when the
mother smells the orphan, she will smell her baby and accept it as her own. By
the time the hide falls off, the orphan will have drunk enough of her milk to
smell like her and the match will be made. It is that way with God. We are born
orphans, enemies of God and lost in the world of sin. But Christ, the perfect Lamb
of God, died so that if we believe in Him, His blood will cover us so that when
God looks at us, He sees His Son and accepts us as His own.
1 Peter 1:18-19
Knowing that you were not redeemed
with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life
inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb
unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.
That is how we are made righteous. It has nothing to do with
who we are or what job we have. It doesn’t matter what we have done. God loves
us no matter what and if we accept Jesus, He will adopt us as His children. We
cannot earn it, nor can we “lose” His love. It doesn’t matter if we have
children, how we raise them, or how many times we mess up. It doesn’t matter if
we do things the way others think we should, or even if we do everything we
think we should. It is all based on His love and sacrifice for us, nothing of
ourselves. Our worth and value is all based on what He did for us, in our
place. He didn’t even do it because we deserved it. That is the point of grace
and mercy. Grace is receiving an underserved gift, and mercy is being forgiven
a debt owed. We cannot deserve or earn either. He did it simply because He
loves us.
What defines you? Do you live under the cloud of what you do,
or don’t do, or have done? Let God define you. Be willing to see yourself as He
does. Stop the rat race to prove your worth. Stop comparing yourself to those
around you, whether you are doing it to see if you are doing what you should,
or to prove that you are better. Don’t let others define you. Let go of the
desire and need to prove your worth and let God’s love be enough. Let go of
your doubt and shame, let go of your pride and conceit. Both of those come from
looking around. Look up. Be ok with not earning or proving anything. Stop living
a works-based religion and live in the freedom of His love and grace. Let that
freedom fulfill you so that you can fully live out your calling as mom.
If you do not believe in God, if you have not accepted Jesus’
sacrifice for you, will you now? Will you allow Him to define you and give you
worth?
WHO I AM IN CHRIST Originally Compiled by Neil Anderson
I AM ACCEPTED... • I am God's child. (John 1:12) • As a
disciple, I am a friend of Jesus Christ. (John 15:15) • I have been justified
(declared righteous). (Romans 5:1) • I am united with the Lord, and I am one
with Him in spirit. (1 Corinthians 6:17) • I have been bought with a price and
I belong to God. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) • I am a member of Christ's body. (1
Corinthians 12:27) • I have been chosen by God and adopted as His child.
(Ephesians 1:3-8) • I have been redeemed and forgiven of all my sins.
(Colossians 1:13-14) • I am complete in Christ. (Colossians 2:9-10) • I have
direct access to the throne of grace through Jesus Christ. (Hebrews 4:14-16)
I AM SECURE... • I am free from condemnation. (Romans 8:1-2)
• I am assured that God works for my good in all circumstances. (Romans 8:28) •
I am free from any condemnation brought against me and I cannot be separated
from the love of God. (Romans 8:31-39) • I have been established, anointed and
sealed by God. (2 Corinthians 1:21-22) • I am hidden with Christ in God.
(Colossians 3:1-4) • I am confident that God will complete the good work He
started in me. (Philippians 1:6) • I am a citizen of heaven. (Philippians 3:20)
• I have not been given a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind.
(2 Timothy 1:10) • I am born of God and the evil one cannot touch me. (1 John
5:18) • I am a branch of Jesus Christ, the true vine, and a channel of His
life. (John 15:5) • I have been chosen and appointed to bear fruit. (John
15:16) • I am God's temple. (1 Corinthians 3:16)
I AM SIGNIFICANT…• I am a minister of reconciliation for God.
(2 Corinthians 5:17-21) • I am seated with Jesus Christ in the heavenly realm.
(Ephesians 2:6) • I am God's workmanship. (Ephesians 2:10) • I may approach God
with freedom and confidence. (Ephesians 3:12) • I can do all things through
Christ, who strengthens me.
