My Identity and You

I thought this was exceptionally appropriate for Valentine's Day, when we attempt to make others happy by giving them gifts. So much pressure is placed on us to make others happy, or to find that perfect person who will make us happy. And you can't be happy if you don't have that special someone.

Reality check: no one is going to make you happy, and you are not going to make anyone else happy. If your identity is found in the love of your life, your children or your job, you'll be disappointed.

Only God can give joy, contentment and satisfaction.

Copied this from Seth Grotzke's blog, SCQuest:Intentional Living.

Here is a convicting excerpt from the excellent devotional, "Heart of the Matter: Daily Reflections for Changing Hearts and Lives" by New Growth Press

"No human being was ever meant to be the source of personal joy and contentment for someone else. Your spouse, your friends, and your children cannot be the sources of your identity. When you seek to define who you are through those relationships, you are asking another sinner to be your personal messiah, to give you the inward rest of soul that only God can give. 

Only when I have sought my identity in the proper place (in my relationship with God) am I able to put you in the proper place as well. When I relate to you knowing that I am God’s child and the recipient of his grace, I am able to serve and love you. 

However, if I am seeking to get identity from you, I will watch you too closely. I will become acutely aware of your weaknesses and failures. I will become overly critical, frustrated, and angry. I will be angry not because you are a sinner, but because you have failed to deliver the one thing I seek from you: identity. 

When I remember that Christ has given me everything I need to be the person he has designed me to be, I am free to serve and love you. When I know who I am, I am free to be humble, gentle, patient, forbearing, and loving as we navigate the inevitable messiness of relationships. 

Authored by Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp

1 John 2:28-3:3 "28 And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. 29 If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him. 1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure."