Knowing Our Identity

I had the amazing privilege of speaking to the women at Take TWO last week. Here's the script...

I met an interesting character named Rahab in the Bible one day a few years ago. Her story struck a familiar chord with me. In her story, the Israelites have been wandering around in the wilderness – typical men didn’t ask for directions – and their great leader, Moses, has just died. A guy by the name of Joshua has taken over, and he is nearly ready to bring the Israelites into the land that God has promised to give them. He sends two spies into the land, into a city called Jericho, to scope out the city. Now, the people who live in Jericho have heard what’s been going on – the Israelites have been killing a lot of people – whole nations, basically – and they’re rightfully afraid. So when the king of Jericho finds out that these two spies are in his city, he’s a little ticked off. He’s afraid that the Israelites are going to come in, take his city, and kill him and all of his people.

These two spies enter the home of a prostitute named Rahab – most likely because it’s a pretty high-traffic area and they wouldn’t arouse much suspicion. She hides the spies when the king comes looking for them and helps them to escape from the city. She acknowledges that their Lord is the one true God and then asks them to return the favor when they come back to destroy the city. They agree, and when Israel returns and destroys Jericho, Rahab and her family are spared. Rahab’s actions not only save her family but also allow Israel to begin taking the land that God promised to give them.

It’s interesting that Rahab is even in the Bible, and the fact that she is mentioned shows how significant a role she played. First of all, she’s a woman. Sorry ladies, but women in ancient Israel were considered property and not people. Second, she’s a pagan – a non-Jew – referenced in a book about the history of the Jews, and she’s portrayed positively. Third, she’s a prostitute. It’s not everyday that a female pagan prostitute gets to play the hero in the Bible.

She even gets to be in Jesus’ family tree. She’s King David’s great-great grandmother, which makes her roughly 30 generations removed from Jesus. So Rahab has a pretty cool story. But here’s what I find most interesting about her. She’s mentioned twice more in the New Testament, once in the book of Hebrews and once in the book of James. Both of those authors talk about how faithful she was – James even goes as far as calling her righteous and comparing her faith to that of Abraham.

So what? What does a pagan prostitute from a million years ago have to do with my life today?

As it turns out, Rahab and I have a lot in common. Not the prostitute part – let’s make that clear; I don’t want any rumors to get started.

You see, the references to Rahab in Hebrews and James both refer to her as “Rahab the prostitute.” Neither author is willing to overlook her identity as a prostitute. Both of these books were written for a Jewish audience that would have been very familiar with the Old Testament. The Jews from back in the day didn’t have access to books, so most of the men had these stories memorized. They knew who Rahab was. They knew her story. Simply referring to her as Rahab would have been sufficient. So why did the authors feel the need to refer to her as “the prostitute?”

Perhaps they wanted to show that anyone, regardless of their sins, can believe in God and be made right with God. It’s easy to feel inferior to a guy like Abraham – he was just the father of all of Israel. He almost sacrificed his own son just to prove his faith to God. He was kind of a big deal. But then Rahab comes along, an outcast from society, someone from the bottom of the social heap, and she too is considered right with God. Interesting.

But I think there’s another possible reason for this. I wonder if the authors just can’t let it go – they just can’t overlook the fact that she was a prostitute. That’s who she was in the world. Being a prostitute was her true identity.

Or was it?

Maybe it wasn’t her true identity after all. Maybe it was only the identity that she had in this world.

Yes, she really was a prostitute. But maybe, just maybe, she was more than that – maybe there’s more to her story. Maybe, in her soul, she was something else. And maybe, just like Rahab, there’s more to your story than what the world says about you.

Many of you have probably heard about and lived under God’s grace. I didn’t. I grew up thinking that if I was going to go to heaven, I was going to have to earn my way there. I was going to have to earn God’s approval just like I had to earn my parents’ approval. I saw God as the scary judge. And then one day just a few years ago someone told me that wasn’t true. They said that there was this thing called grace. They said that Jesus took my punishment when He died on the cross, and if I accepted Him, I could have a relationship with God and go to heaven when I die.

Suddenly my world changed. I was free! I didn’t have to be afraid of death anymore!

So why was it that the only thing that really changed was my eternal destination? Not that that’s not huge – it is. But I only saw God’s grace as a get-out-of-hell-free card. I didn’t see it as something that could have a real impact on my life right now – it was reserved for the future.

Then about a year ago my life blew up. I don’t mean that things got a little hard. This was one of those times that rocked me to the very core of my being and forced me to question everything that I believe. Have you ever had one of those seasons? A season where the world seems to be completely against you? Where the things you care about disappear – or worse, are taken away?

What do you do with that? What do you do when it feels like everyone – especially God – is either against you or just flat gone? What do you do when you fall sobbing on your knees and don’t even think you have the strength to get back up? What do you do when you feel like you’re the prostitute in your own story – lower than low, rejected, labeled, condemned by those who don’t even know you? Where is God in that?

Well, He’s right here. Just trust Him. He loves you. He’ll work everything out for your good. He’ll take away your pain and make everything better. And if you’ve ever been told those things when you’re at the bottom of the pit, you’ve probably been tempted to punch the person who said that in the eye.

Why, if those things are true, do we not want to hear them? Why do they bother us so much, especially when we hear them during the hard seasons? Maybe it’s because we feel that our faith is being called into question. Maybe the answer just seems so trite, so religious, or so completely unrealistic. Just trust God to fix everything. Right. Have you not watched the news lately? Have you not seen my life? Because that’s not what’s happening – God’s not fixing stuff.

But what if trusting God to fix stuff is the whole problem? So many times we make God out to be our genie who pops out of the magic lamp at our beck and call to grant our every wish. What if instead of saying “God, fix this” I said “God, fix me?”

What if trusting God really means trusting Who He says He is and who He says I am? What if it means trusting my identity in Him instead of my identity in the world? The world may have just seen Rahab as a prostitute, but God surely didn’t. Look at what He did through her. And I can’t imagine she saw herself as just a prostitute either – I doubt she would have risked her life to save two strangers if that were her only identity. I have to believe that she saw herself as more than that. I think that’s what gave her the strength and the courage to do what she did.

The same can be true for us. This isn’t just a matter of surviving the really hard seasons, although it allowed Rahab to survive the Israelite invasion, and it allows us to make it through tough times. It’s also a matter of living the abundant life that Jesus came to give us. When we sow seeds of God’s truth in our lives, we then reap that abundant life because we find our identity in God instead of in the world. We’re free to live in joy instead of in fear and shame.

But what are seeds of God’s truth? What does God actually say about Himself and about us? Fortunately, He tells us Who He is and who we are in Him in the Bible. These are some examples of what God says about Who He is:

·He is compassionate and gracious; slow to anger and abounding in love (Psalm 103:8)
·He is good (Psalm 106:1) – This is the heart of God – His goodness. Yes, He is holy. Yes, He is righteous. Yes, He is a hundred other adjectives that church people like to throw around. But at the root of all of those things, God is good.
·He is trustworthy (John 8:26) – I’ll be honest, this is what I struggle with the most. Without the belief that God is trustworthy, none of the rest of what He says would matter – not if we didn’t have a reason to believe Him.
·He is love (1 John 4:16) – I once heard someone say that God doesn’t love us because we’re lovable. He loves us because He is love and He can’t not love us, so we can’t do anything to lose His love.
·He delights in us (Psalm 149:5) – The Hebrew for delight means to be pleased with or to accept favorably.
·He will never stop doing good to us (Jeremiah 32:40)
·He will give us the desires of our hearts (Psalm 37:4) – This verse is talking about the deepest desires of our hearts – things like feeling loved and having a purpose.
·He will never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5) – Isn’t it nice to think that we don’t have to live life alone?

And what God does say about who we are in Him, once we’ve accepted Jesus as our savior?

·We are made in His image (Genesis 1:27) – We have value. We matter to God. We are special to God.
·We are the children of God (1 John 3:1 et al) – We are loved and we share in His inheritance.
·We were chosen by Him when He planned creation (Ephesians 1:11-12)
·We are justified and have peace with God (Romans 5:1) – Justification means that we are forgiven and made right with God.
·We are not condemned (Romans 8:1) – God no longer sees our sins when He looks at us; rather, He sees the righteousness of Christ.
·We are saints (Romans 1:1) – We’re saints who sin, but we’re saints no less.
·We are redeemed and forgiven of all of our sins (Colossians 1:14)
·We are valuable to God (see Matthew 10:29-30) – He bought us at an incredibly high price.

Maybe you already believe those things. Maybe your identity is already in God instead of in the world. To you I say “yea you. That’s awesome. And I hope one day I can join you there.”

Maybe this is all brand new to you. Maybe you’ve never heard any of these things before. I’ve been there. That’s my story. I’m sad that you’ve never heard those things before, but I also have so much hope for you, because I know how drastically your life can change. It won’t be an overnight process. God sent His only Son to die on a cross so that you could have a relationship and spend eternity with Him. Only a loving God would do that. He says that when you seek Him with all of your heart, you’ll find Him. Start seeking. Read the Bible. If you don’t know where to start, try starting in one of the Gospels or in the book of Romans. Talk to people who are farther along in this journey. Pray to God, and ask Him to show you that this is His truth, not mine.

But maybe you’re somewhere in the middle. Maybe you’re struggling with all of this. You’ve heard some of this before, but you still don’t quite believe that it’s actually true about you. I admire your honesty and humility. It’s a hard place to be, especially when others around you seem to get it. Maybe all you can do right now is to sit with the question of whether or not God really does love you. He knows where you are. Ask Him the question. He’s not frustrated with you for asking; He’s actually waiting for you to ask so that He can show you that it’s true. I know that’s a lot to ask, and I know it’s risky. For so long I didn’t believe that God really loved me. The world sure didn’t, so why would God? The only advice I can give you is to tell Him that you want to believe what He says, but that you don’t just yet, and that you need Him to show you how He feels about you. He will. Remember that it will take some time – tending to your heart isn’t an overnight process. And be prepared for that to happen in some unexpected ways.

I’ll never forget one day, just a few weeks ago, I was really sad and feeling pretty unloved. I don’t remember why; there probably wasn’t any one particular reason. I told God that a phone call from a certain friend would make me feel better. That person didn’t call. Instead, when I got back to my office after lunch, there were a card and a vase of flowers from one of the girls I work with. She knew I was having a bad day and wanted to cheer me up. I felt so loved when she did that. It was like God was saying to me, “tell me what you need, but don’t tell me how to meet your needs. Get rid of your own plans and let me love you my way.” God certainly didn’t meet my need to feel loved like I thought He would, but He met that need nonetheless. In that moment, I knew that he loved and valued me.

Maybe it seems like a pretty small thing – they were just flowers from a friend. I get that. But in that moment, I felt in my heart that God was looking down on me, showing me that I was His beloved daughter. In that moment, God’s love defined me and healed one of the many broken places in my heart. So please, don’t stop asking. Ask God to show you what He thinks about you. And ask Him to give you the eyes to see what He’s trying to show you. You can’t change your view of yourself or your view of God by yourself. If you’re like me, you’ve probably tried that many times with no success. You need God’s help – that’s where His grace meets our lives.

Rahab may have started her story as a prostitute on the bottom rung of the social ladder, but she became the person that God created her to be. He showed her grace and gave her a new identity – one of righteousness; of God’s own child. She risked greatly but trusted God with her life and her heart, and her life was never the same again. God wants that for you too. He wants you to live out of the new identity that He’s already given to you. He wants to define you. Will you let Him?