“For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him.” — Ephesians 1:4

Who am I? That seems to be the question that follows us, even haunts us, at times throughout our lives. From an intellectual standpoint, the question may be more easily answered when able to ascertain it from a safe distance, when our emotions are not engaged in the process. Stepping back, one can easily assess how we come to be who we are based upon our personalities, life experiences, current circumstances, trauma, successes, and rejections, to name a few. But who were we created to be?

The truest, most sincere answer to that question reaches way farther back into history. The answer lies in His Story. Life often wears us out and gives our self-image, identity, and confidence a good beating. But that was not how the story was supposed to go. You see, at the very beginning of time as we know it, all the way back to the perfect Garden of Eden, God created humankind with intention, with love, and fashioned us in His image. First and foremost, we are the very image-bearers of God. That alone should strengthen how we view ourselves and reinforce our identity at its core. Not only did God create us in His image, but once He did so, He called His creation “very good” (see Genesis 1:26-31).

God and Adam and Eve experienced perfect harmony and unity in the Garden until sin entered and the fall of man came, at the hand of both Eve and Adam. Since that time, our identities have undergone a warped version of what they were created to be. Sin alters how we view ourselves. The devil is constantly trying to eradicate who we are in Christ. Yet even all the way back in Eden, God promised to make a way for redemption. He promised the seed of woman would strike the head of the serpent. Satan would ultimately be defeated by Jesus Christ (Genesis 3).

Fast forward millennia, and Jesus, the promised seed of woman who would crush the head of the serpent, was born into the world. Jesus was and is and forever will be the redemptive plan of God the Father. Jesus Himself is called the firstborn from among the dead (Colossian 1:18). Jesus nailed our sins to the cross with His death, and with His resurrection and defeat of sin, Satan, and death, has made us alive in Him. Romans 8:16-17 calls us children of God and heirs and co-heirs with Christ.

Right about now, you may be thinking, what does any of this have to do with my identity? Everything! If you belong to Christ, then you are a child of the King. I am a daughter of the King. What we believe to be true about ourselves impacts all of our choices and decisions and words and relationships. How does it change your mindset when you pause and consider who you are in Christ?

Ephesians 1:4 tells us that we were chosen by God before the foundation of the world. Way before creation, God already chose you and chose me. A fundamental reality of our identity in Christ is that we are chosen. If we were to continue reading through those first several verses of Ephesians, we would see that not only are we chosen, but we are also blessed, predestined, adopted, redeemed, forgiven, and sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. Our culture is constantly applying pressure to us for us to do more, be more, achieve more, acquire more, more, more, more. Never enough. Friend, in Christ we are enough. He is more than enough, and He makes us enough. In Jesus, God is redeeming us, and He is in the business of restoration.

Every year, I pray about a word for the year or a focus for the year. For whatever reason, the challenge and struggle to hear the one for me was exceptionally difficult this year. I prayed for a couple of months. I narrowed down lists. I selected a word, but then I realized it didn’t feel like it was the right one. Close, but not quite right. Until Jesus kept bringing my heart back to this concept of restoration. This, of course, has resulted in an ongoing conversation with Jesus about what it is He wants to restore. And by His grace, He is continuing to reveal to me different areas of my life in which He wants to bring restoration. For January 2025, it is the restoration of my identity. Who I am in Him. How to be the woman He created me to be. Where I have lost sight of who I really am due to life and experiences.

Each week in January this year in my quiet time, I am focusing on a verse that reminds me of who I am in Christ. For this week, it is Ephesians 1:4. While I love the entire block of verses that are rich with who we are in Christ, verse 4 really narrows in on the fact that I am chosen. Not just chosen to belong to Christ, but chosen to be holy and blameless in love before Him. This portion of my identity also tells me how to live. This idea of being holy and blameless is also known as the sanctification process. Praise God He didn’t save us to keep us the same. He saved us to be holy and blameless in love. Why? The answer takes us all the way back to Genesis. God created man and woman in His image. We are His image-bearers, and He in the business of restoring us back to that state. He is holy and blameless, and we bear His image. Humanity will never again bear the image of God perfectly this side of heaven and the return of Christ in triumph. But it is always a work in process. To bear the image of God. That is our identity.

How should we apply this to our daily lives? I’ve been really thinking about how being a daughter of the King should impact how I live here on earth. As a chosen child of God, I should reflect Him and His kingdom here. Last week in church, our pastor spoke on the weapons of righteousness found in 2 Corinthians 6. Often we head straight to Ephesians 6:10-18 as our battle gear. But 2 Corinthians 6 also offers us additional insight into what weapons we should fight with as children of God: great endurance, purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, sincere love, honesty in speech, and the power of God. All week I have been meditating on this idea of what it would look like if we, as chosen children of God, children of the King, lived out our faith utilizing these weapons in the world. What if we ushered in His kingdom here on earth by enduring, by being pure, by having knowledge and understanding, by offering patience to others and with our circumstances, by being kind, by operating in the strength and power of the Holy Spirit, by loving others, and by being honest in our speech?

Imagine a world where the followers of Christ joined forces and operated from our true identity in Christ! Each one of us has the opportunity to say yes to that every single day. This energizes me and reminds me that I have a purpose here on earth with eternal implications! May we go forth in the certainty and confidence of who we are in Christ and do kingdom work in the power of the Holy Spirit! And remember, God created man and woman and called it very good!