I AM

 JOHN 8:58    Before Abraham was I am.    

Jesus says He is a lot of things -  ' I am the Way, the Truth and the Life'  ' I am bread'  I am resurrection'  I am the door'   But I don't really want to talk about those identifiers.  I just want to focus on the I AM bit.

I was listening to something on the radio in the car this evening as I was driving through snow and freezing fog back home after a very busy Saturday.  The programme was scientific, but at one point someone started talking about identity.  Identity has become a bit of a buzz word of late. Everyone is on about it.  Gender identity in particular, and how we want to ' identify'.   But all sorts of other identities too -  how do our political views or our incomes or our employment status or even our vaccination status affect how we see ourselves and how we think others see us?   And it struck me that fewer and fewer people in the world seem to know who they are. There is more and increasing confusion and deception and nonsense.  Leading to mental distress and isolation.  But Jesus knew exactly who He was. He was unafraid to stand up and say ' Listen up folks, this is who I am. I am the Way.  I am the Truth. I am life. '  He was supremely secure in His identity as the Son of God. Probably because He had heard God speak from heaven at His baptism affirming no only who He was but that His identity was beloved by His Father.

I wonder how many identity and mental health issues in society today stem from a lack of affirmation and approval of fathers.  How many people have never heard '  You are MY son/daughter and I am really proud of you and pleased with you and I love you'.   Im sure a huge lack of fathering in our western world is having massive knock on effects on the self esteem and security of generations of children currently growing up wondering who they are.

The good news is that for all of us, secure in our identity or not, there is a chance to hear that ' I love you' from our heavenly father.  A chance to have the fractures in our souls healed by the adoption of sons into His family.  The chance to be sealed by the Holy Spirit into a destiny from which neither life nor death, heaven or hell can separate us. 

Church needs whole people who can confidently say to the world ' I am born again. I know who I am and who I am is loved by the Father'.   



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