Our Identity in Jesus

1. With your help I can advance against a troop, with my God I can scale a wall. Psalm 18:29
2. My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness…When I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:8, 
3. I can do all this through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13 ...

I used to think of myself as a strong person. Until I wasn’t. Until the waves of life knocked me off my feet and left me sinking in weakness. It is in this place of weariness where my eyes opened to my need to receive from God. It is in that place his miracles happen inside of us. The God who promises to never leave us or forsake us, pours out his mighty and gentle power. “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness,” Jesus says (2 Corinthians 12:9). ...

The chains that wrapped around me were subtle and seemingly good, until they had me in a depression death grip that would not allow me to breathe.

I grew up a competitive gymnast. I loved it, the determination it took, the joy of soaring through the air, and the satisfaction of a stuck landing. But it also taught me to perform for my worth. I learned exactly what hoops I had to jump through to earn the approval of coaches and judges. Subtly through me teens and young adult life, these lessons followed me long after I had hung up my grips and leotards. I hit my twenties with a laundry list of standards in order to feel good enough in my own eyes. Be the best teacher...

You are…Set Free

Imagine with me the freed Hebrew slaves as they have just witnessed Pharaoh’s army get swept away by the Red Sea closing over them. A woman stands on the edge of the frothing waves watching the power of oppression sinking to the bottom. For four hundred years all her people have known is slavery and oppression. She leaves that all behind, now truly set free from her former life and walking in freedom and adventure with the God who Saves.

You are...God's beloved.

Pour over these verses and choose the one that resonates to you today.

• I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. Jeremiah 31:3

• And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses

You are . . . P U R E.

Let’s dive into this word

pure: adjective

free from anything of a different, inferior, or contaminating kind.

And what is it that contaminates us? What separates us from the perfect purity of our Holy God? It is our sin, our selfishness, our pride, our seeking pleasure, power, materialism over our God who loves us so completely. We are tarnished. All of us. The church ladies as well as those painted with a scarlet letter

The Lord promises us his purity. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness,” (1 John 1:9, NIV). Friends, all we have to do is come to him and he runs to us and washes us clean from the inside out.

We are never alone. 

Let that sink in for a moment.

Think back to those moments when you have felt so very alone.

Now bring into that place of isolation the reality that God will never leave you or forsake you. See yourself in that memory with Jesus wrapping you in his arms, comforting you, guiding you, understanding you and your heart.

This verse struck me in both its relatability and its hope. Just as Jesus told us, we will indeed have trouble in this world. People will get sick. Jobs will be lost. Rejection will pierce hearts. Wars will demolish. None of this surprises God. He knows that this is the sad state of our fallen world. I am thankful that the hard seasons in my life did not sneak up on my Maker like they did me.