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"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."
(2 Corinthians 5:17, ESV)
If I had to give you a little insight into who Bryant Forshee is, here are a few things that would come up:
Son to Danny and Ashley, Husband to Kyndall, Father to Tabor and Miller, Brother to Hannah and Leighton, Brother-in-law to Jeffrey, Danielle, Sean, and Sterling, Son-in-law to Tori and Meigs, Student Pastor at Cross Church Springdale, Graduate of Dallas Baptist University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Auburn football fan, Carolina basketball Fan, tennis fan, Wingstop fan, moviegoer, and recent hunter. This list is obviously not all-inclusive, but these are a few of the identifying factors one could see in my life.
If I were to sit down with you today and talk to you about one of the hardest areas of my life, I would definitely begin talking to you about my struggle with identity. If you look at the list above, you might be thinking, "What's wrong with that list?" Based on the list above, you wouldn't see much of an identity issue, but when you peel the layers back from those identifiers and look into my life, you would see identifiers such as: insecure, people-pleaser, sinner, low self-confidence, and comparing myself to others around me. Now, the point of this devotion is not for you to feel sorry for me; in fact, it is quite the opposite.
The fantastic news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that as Christians, we are a new creation in Christ. That is what our verse for today tells us, and what that means is that the tough list in paragraph two is not what defines me as who I am; these are battles that I have to fight in my mind against a false identity that Satan wants me to believe about myself. Identity is my word for the year because it is something that I (and possibly you) struggle with every day, but God's word is full of rich truth about who we are in Christ, the great names that God calls us as His children, and the great attributes we get because we are in Christ!
This week, we are going to look at the biblical truths of our identity! We are going to look at the truth that, as a follower of Jesus, you are loved, a child of God, with someone powerful, and we will conclude the week with an old but great song! The truth we need to lean into today is found in 2 Corinthians 5:17! We are new creations in Christ. The old has passed away, and we are now new in Christ Jesus! Christ Jesus loves us. We are children of Christ Jesus! We are with someone powerful, who is Christ Jesus! Accept the identity that God places on you and gave you when He saved you!
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