Life's Daily Challenge Devotional

Defining who I am

“For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him," Colossians 1:16.

Dear child of God,

Walking in purpose requires you to know who you are. Until you come to this understanding you will not know what to do with your time.

The humanistic way of defining self is much different from God’s. Gayle A. Davis, Ph.D., who is a sports psychologist, said in her book, “High Performance Thinking,” that self-image or self-concept has four parts to it. She lists these as:

This, in reality, may be the way that most people define who they are. The problem is that this model of self-concept places man, rather than God at the center of perception. In order to truly understand the purpose of something however, you must trace it back to its origin. You and I are not a product of slime plus time as the evolutionists would have us believe. Nor did we create ourselves. We came out of God. God, our Creator, fashioned us in His Son. We were created by Christ, through Christ and for Christ, and it is only through Him that we continue to exist (Colossians 1:16-17).

The world is occupied by millions of people struggling with identity crisis. These are people who are making purposeless trades with their time because they don’t really know who they are. Some of them are very successful in the world’s eyes. The world, at large, does not know God, however. Having no standard of measurement, they compare themselves to one another. This is a crooked standard.

This means that there are millions of people with a huge vacuum deep inside. They keep trying to find significance and security through things that offer temporary satisfaction at best. Our world is changing more rapidly than many people have the ability to cope. The Bible foretold this long ago, saying that in the last days knowledge would increase and men would run to and fro (Daniel 12:4). Our super computers and other tools of communication make it possible to accumulate, transmit and store information at overwhelming rates of speed. The trend has changed from knowing what you know, to knowing where you stored what you know. The world changes with each tick of the clock. Things that seemed rock solid yesterday are long gone tomorrow. People struggle and grasp. They fight and wrestle to find and maintain their place in life. This creates a giant competition. Wealth, intelligence, athletic ability, beauty and fame... People compete to find value among one another. This entire system strips people of their value.

Madison Avenue thrives by depreciation. They convince you that in order to be anybody, you have to have more, be more and do more. Of course this means that you must buy their products. The world system tempts you to perform harder and faster... to buy, achieve and accumulate. Following this path denies you the significance and security that comes from knowing that you are loved by the One who gave you life in the first place. There was something in His mind when He made you. There is a reason for your existence. He needs you! True value comes through this relationship. Humbling as is may be, you have nothing of eternal significance to offer your world until you take yourself out of the center of the equation.