Finding Our Identity in God

Jim:
Jeremiah 15:10-21
I wrestled with this passage for quite a while this morning before I settled on verse 16. "Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart; for I am called by your name, O Lord, God of hosts." As the Oxford Study Bible points out, this passage is a "personal lament" by Jeremiah for the ostracism he faces because of his role as prophet. Yet he has centered his life so completely around the word of God as to have consumed it and now it delights his heart. God's word, then, is at the center of all Jeremiah does, and the prophet's very identity is now tied up in that of God.

Philippians 3:15-21
Here centering one's life around God is expressed in different language, but the idea is essentially the same. In verse 20 it says, "But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ." Jeremiah was called by God's name. The Christian's citizenship, another source of identity, is in heaven. The word "citizenship" can also be translated "commonwealth" which points more clearly, I think, to the corporate nature of our identity in God. We are known by whom we serve and in whom we place our trust.

John 12:20-26
Here I choose verse 25: "Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life IN THIS WORLD will keep it for eternal life." Again, our identity is found in our relationship with God and not in this world.