Exploring Romans

Identity is an essential factor in the mental and spiritual health of every human being. Unless we know who and what we are our confidence is impaired because our place in the over-all picture is obscured. A great many people suffer from identity problems today.

However, this lack of identity should never be allowed to remain after a person receives Jesus Christ as Savior. No matter how questionable our past behavior may have been, or how badly our human parents treated us, our heavenly Father is never abusive or distant. He gives us a new start, a new identity. He enables us to base our lives on a new foundation, with a new sense of security and a new goal to aim for.

We are told in 2 Corinthians 5:17:

“If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

Notice, this is not a command but a statement of fact. We are not commanded to make ourselves into new creatures. We are automatically new creatures if we have trusted Christ. This confidence is expressed frequently in Paul’s letters. In 2 Timothy 1:12 he wrote:

“I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have   committed unto him against that day.”

He told the Philippians (Philippians 1:6):

            “Being confident of this very thing, that he which       hath begun a good work in you will perform it            until the day of Jesus Christ.”

To the Romans he wrote (Romans 8:38-39):

            “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life,       nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor             things   present, nor things to come, 39 Nor     height, nor depth, nor any other creature,      shall be able to separate us from the love of God,        which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And he wrote to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 15:10):

            “By the grace of God I am what I am”.