Past Identity

What defines us? How does our past affect who we are and the way that we see ourselves? Most would admit, that things that happened when they were younger, events or things that people said, drastically shaped how they saw themselves as adults. Even learning about things after the fact, or learning our family history, can shape who we are as individuals. The past of our families and ourselves greatly affects who we become.

 

Genesis 1:1,31 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

 

The book of Genesis was written by Moses, obviously, centuries after it happened. It was given to him and directed by God Himself after the people left Egypt, after 400 years of slavery and bondage. They had grown from a family of 70 to a nation close to 2 million. That growth had happened in the midst of a foreign, pagan culture that worshipped foreign gods and entertained ungodly practices. It was a formative time, as when a child first leaves home to be on their own, to become their own person.

 

It was at this delicate time that God gave them their history, the history of their people and the story of how they were chosen by God to be His own people. He was giving them their identity at a time when they didn’t know who they were or how they should act. He was also telling them who He is so they would know who they were following and believing in, and that they could trust Him. This showed them that He created them with a purpose and meaning. He was also letting them know that suffering and death were never part of the original plan. It was not something God created, and He never intended for us to experience it. His plan was completely good.

 

Psalm 139:13,16 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

For You formed my inward parts;
You wove me in my mother’s womb…

Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;
And in Your book were all written
The days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was not one of them.

1 Peter 5:7 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.

James 4:8 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

 

God cares deeply about all those He has created, because He personally and intimately made each of us. He is completely trustworthy and longs for us to trust and rely on Him, to have a close, intimate relationship with Him. That was His plan from the beginning. He didn’t need to create anything. He did it because He wanted to, because He desired to have a relationship with us, and the separation sin brings breaks His heart.

 

Hebrews 7:25 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.

1 John 3:1 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.

Ephesians 2:10 New Living Translation (NLT)

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

 

That is why He sent His Son Jesus to die for us, to pay our debt, so that we could again have that relationship with Him, so that we could remember that our identity is in Him and not in the world. He wanted to remind us how much He loves us.

 

What defines you? Where is your identity found? How does your past shape you? Let your identity be found in God, in what He says about you, in His love and sacrifice for you. He made you specifically for a purpose, a purpose that He planned long ago before the foundation of the world, from the beginning.