How would you describe yourself? How do you introduce yourself? How do you perceive yourself?  Your answers to those questions are important because when you know who you are, then you know what to do. If you don’t know who you are, then you don’t know what to do.  Let’s ask a different question: Who does God say that you are? Genesis 1: 26 says “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. That includes men and women. “In our image, after our likeness.”  Who are you? God says, “I’ve made you in my image and likeness.” That’s your identity; that is who you are.  You don’t have to decide what your identity is because God has already answered that question for you.

When God says that we are made in his image and likeness, think of images in your life. Every morning, most of us get up and look in a mirror, and that mirror is reflecting back to us our image, our likeness, revealing to us who we are.  In the same way, God wants His attributes to be visible on the earth through His children.  He wants the world to know something about Him, and so he’s made us as his mirrors. We were made to mirror God on the earth. God is loving, and when we love, we reflect his love to others. God is truthful. When we tell the truth, we reflect his truthfulness to others. God is forgiving. When we forgive others, we’re reflecting his grace and his mercy to others. God is generous, and when we’re generous, we’re reflecting his generosity to others.  So our life is to be one of mirroring  and the goal is not for the world to know us, but the goal is for the world to know Him. We are to reflect, to mirror, to show, to echo something of God’s attributes to the world.

Your identity is received, it’s not achieved. Adam and Eve didn’t do anything to obtain their identity. God made them, God spoke to them, God defined them, and God blessed them. It’s all God. Your identity is not achieved, it’s received. It’s not something you do, it’s something God does. It’s not what you earn, it’s what God gives.  This one fact frees you from the performance trap. It frees you from the competitive trap. It frees you from being bitter or jealous of others.  It lets you be who God made you to be, and rejoice in who God made your brothers and sisters in Christ to be.  We are all made in the image and likeness and God.  Your net worth has nothing to do with your self-worth.  You are a child of God and no one can ever steal that identity from you because it is protected by the blood of Jesus Christ, your Lord and Savior.