Who are you? We ask this question all the time, when

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2 PREFACE Who are you? We ask this question all the time, when we want to get to know a person. What about Who am I? Do we often ask ourselves who we are? Not always. Because we tend to think we know all about ourselves. But really do we? Probably not. Identity crisis in psychology means the condition of being uncertain of one s feeling about oneself. But I think the real identity crisis is when we think we know ourselves but really don t know who we are in the eyes of our creator God. God being our creator makes us His marvellous creations made for a purpose, and added to this there are many a things that we are, or intended to be. The Bible is the user s manual that we could use to know all about ourselves, about our creator, why we were created, and how to handle our life so that it serves it purpose and does not fall apart due to ignorance about the DO s and DON Ts. When we realize who we are is nowhere near who God wants us to be, the question is, Who should I be? If these questions are bothering you, I am sure this book will give you an insight that would help you answer them. Explained in simple language with illustrations and real-life examples, each chapter tells you who you are or should be, with clear references from the Bible. I pray that God speak to you through this book. Give away your preconceptions and read this book with an open heart, and it will surely make a U-turn in your life, from all that you are not meant to be. Once you really realize who you are, life would never be the same. Let us get back into the real meaning of LIFE. And this book will surely be an aid. I thank God for helping my friend Zeno to make this valuable compilation. May he be equipped to write more and more to inspire many lives. God Bless. July 22 nd, 2015 Gladice K. John Mavelikara

3 1. INTRODUCTION 2. I M A NEW CREATION 3. I M A CHILD OF GOD 4. DWELLING PLACE OF GOD 5. I M THE SALT & LIGHT OF THIS WORLD 6. LOVER OF ENEMIES 7. PART-TAKER OF DIVINE NATURE 8. I M A LETTER 9. I M A RACER 10.CONCLUSION

4 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Once I was talking to one of my friends. I asked him, If I ask you Who you are? what will be your answer? He said, I m George (name changed) No, that s your name, I m an engineer Me: No, that s your profession. Then who are you? He: I m Son of Mr. & Mrs Daniel. (Name changed) Me: No. No. No, that s who your parents are. He got bit confused and bit angry, he said: I m a human being. Me: Eh, That s we all are. What specific thing you can say about yourself?? He thought for a moment and replied, No, I don t know. I asked this same question to twenty people in my whatsapp contact. Some replied with their names, others their gender, few said I m fine, some replied I don t know and very few replied, I m God s Child. Among these answers, I came up to a really specific and clear answer which made me to think about the same for a while, the answer was, The real me is the Mary (name changed) comes out when nobody is watching, the real me is what I do, the character, nobody except me and God knows that. We all have an identity in Christ. That s who we 4

5 are in Christ. And that s what we are. Man s search for who they are ends up in God. The real meaning of man s life can be found only in God, the Creator of all beings. Our relationship with God depicts who we really are in Christ. We may have lot of things to explain about ourselves as a being, but that doesn t make ourselves whole in Christ. Our personal relationship with God makes us who we really are. Though the Bible says lot about who we are in Christ, among them, I took out few topics that made me think more. They are included in the following chapters of this book. Each one is important, in making us into the perfection that God has in mind. Read on 5

6 CHAPTER 2 I M A NEW CREATION 2 Corinthians: 5: 17, "When someone becomes a Christian he becomes a brand new person inside. He is not the same anymore. A new life has begun!" (NLT) We might have a feeling that there is a word Christian * in the verse, but, it doesn t mean about a religion. It means the one who truly follows Christ. When someone chooses to follow Christ, he /she will become a brand new person inside. The change occurs from the inside. Many people who claim to be followers of Christ live as per their wish. Their ways and talks are not in synchronism. They speak about holy life and actually lead unholy life. Jesus Christ never compelled people to follow Him. It s our choice. God has given each person the freewill to accept or reject Him. Yeah, to become a new creation, it s a choice that we should make at right time. New creation- a new life, a new heart, a new peace, a new hope and a new assurance is given for those who become a new creation by accepting Jesus Christ. It was all done by God. We were His enemies but through Christ, He made us His friends. God created a close relationship with Him through the sacrificial death of Christ. Footnote: *Christian-One who lives according to the teachings of Jesus. 6

7 Augustin of Hippo, or St. Augustin was a real bad man before he came to know about Jesus, he led a sinful living and was spending his time and money on unholy practices. After he came to know about Jesus, one day he was walking through the streets, suddenly, the people who sinned with him came up and called, "Augustin, Augustin, Don't you know us, we have sinned with you, come with us." They tempted him to enjoy sin, but he replied, "I don't know the Augustin you are speaking about, the old Augustin is dead, I'm a new creation now." As we are a new creation, we need to work for our salvation. God doesn't want us to be neutral towards sin, He wants us to fight against sin even till death. When we accept Jesus Christ as our personal savior, we are becoming a brand new person inside. The things of world become old once used, and no process can make them back as brand new unless it is recycled or remoulded. But, only God can transform the deformed, ruined and sinful life into a brand new one. A new heart and peace of mind is what we get when He transforms us. Sin must not be our master, instead, let God be our Master. To make us a brand new creation, the cost paid was the life of the only begotten son, Jesus Christ. He tasted death for all of us. When the sacrifices for the sins were too expensive for the people to attain, God give it as a free gift for all. That shows the love of God. "For God so loved the world so much that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not die but have eternal life." John: 3:16. His death made us as a new creation. 7

8 CHAPTER 3 I M A CHILD OF GOD In the previous chapter, we discussed that we are a new creation in Christ. Our old selves are laid down and we are a new being now. In our homes, if a new baby is born, how happy will be whole family will be? The pain the mother felt minutes before or even seconds turns out as joy and happiness. Similarly, when a new person is joined with Christ, the heaven is having the utmost happiness. John: 1: 12, Some, however, did receive Him and believed Him; so He gave them the right to become God s children. (TEV) In the passage, i.e., from verse 10-13, we can see that, the Word was in the world, who was the Word? Jesus Christ, He came to the world which He created, but the world did not recognize Him. See the word, recognize*, the world never accepted Him, they went like they have never met Him before. Then He came to His people, they rejected Him. So, as a result, to those who believe in Him, He gave the right to become children of God. How amazing is the love of God. The one who believes in Him will have rebirth. It is not a physical birth, but renewal of our inner being. It is from God Almighty. Footnote: *Recognize-identify (something or someone) from having encountered them before, acknowledge the existence, validity or legality of. 8

9 The behavior of a person shows how he/she is raised in his/her home. So, if we are the children of God, we have to show or we have to live according to the standard of our heavenly Father. Our walks, talks and all our ways are to be in His standard. God doesn t wants us to conform to the patterns of this world. Romans: 12: 2, Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind. Then you will be able to know the will of God-what is good and is pleasing to Him and is perfect. (TEV) The world has its own standards and patterns. The world will try to mould us in its own pattern, but, we are the children of God. We must escape from those patterns. Instead of going as per the patterns of this world, God wants us to have a transformation from inside. A transformation with the touch of God. As a child, we need to grow in Him. To grow in Him, we need to take the Spiritual food. In 1 Peter: 2: 2. St. Peter says, Be like new born babies, always thirsty for the pure spiritual milk, so that by drinking it you may grow up and be saved. (TEV) The food must be pure. Impure food can cause health problems. Today, the spiritual food that some people serve contains complan or maltova- false teachings, prosperity theologies and so on. We can see how they are going. They are edging towards their utter destruction. If we are a true child of God, we will be able to identify whether the teachings are right or not. As a child of God, we need to grow up in every way to Christ, who is the head. May the Lord help us to grow according to His will. Let us show the world, the standard of being a child of God. Let the world see Jesus dwelling in us. 9

10 CHAPTER 4 DWELLING PLACE OF GOD While we think about our dwelling place or our home, we get a good feeling in our mind. Most of us are eager to come home from the day s hectic works or studies to be calm, to feel safe, and to be free from all sorts of disturbances and all. No one likes to keep their house untidy. If it is untidy, we don t like to come to the mess, so, we clean it on a daily basis or in other words, cleaning is a routine of our life. In 1 Corinthians: 3: 16-17, St. Paul says, Surely you know that you are God s temple and that God s Spirit lives in you! So if anyone destroys God s temple, God will destroy him. For God s temple is holy, and you yourselves are His temple. (TEV) We are God s temple, God created us in His own image and likeness. He dwells in us. We are like the stewards* who are in charge of the temple of the Lord and it is our primary and ultimate duty to keep it clean and secure. The stewards duty is to keep the things intact even in the absence of the master. And, the stewards have to look after the same as if it belongs to themselves. When the master comes and checks the same, if there is some problem with the property, the master blames the stewards for their carelessness. Footnote: *Steward-A person employed to manage another s property, especially a large house or estate. 10

11 As we are the temple of God, we need to glorify God with our body. In 1 Corinthians: 6: 12-20, St. Paul says about using our body for God s glory. We must avoid immorality, Any other sin a man commits does not affect his body; but the man who is guilty of sexual immorality sins against his own body (Vs. 18). Our bodies are the parts of the body of Christ. They cannot be used for any other unholy things that causes destruction of the temple of God. 1 Corinthians: 6: 19-20, Don t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and who was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourselves but to God; He brought you for a price. So use your bodies for God s glory. God bought us with a price which was paid on the Cross of Calvary. The price He paid was the life of His only begotten son-jesus Christ. So, we must understand the value of our body. Don t use it for unholy practices. Sin must no longer be our Master, give God the Mastership of our life. We need to be different among our society, it doesn t mean that we don t have to have a contact with the world, but, it means that we must not conform to the patterns of this world. We should keep ourselves holy. We don t have the right to destroy His temple. God will destroy those who destroy His temple. The Spirit of the Lord dwells in us. If there are unholy practices or things in our life, God will not dwell in us. So, cleansing ourselves on a daily basis is essential for us. We are the pots filled with His love. Let the love of God flow from us to others. Let the people see Jesus in us than seeing ourselves. Maintain a constant relationship with Him. For He is coming soon. 11

12 CHAPTER 5 I M THE SALT & LIGHT OF THIS WORLD In Matthew: 5: 13-16, Jesus is comparing us with: Salt for all mankind, Light for the world. Jesus is making us know the purpose for which we are here in this world. Many of us fail to know the exact purpose of being in this world and go as per our own selfish needs which is against the will of God. Verse: 13. We know that salt is a preservative. It preserves food items from getting rotten. In old days, before the use of refrigerators at home, our grandmothers used to put salt over fish and later they cleaned and used it. I don t want to elaborate the chemical reaction of salt over the food items, because I am weak in chemistry. Anyway, the salt preserves the fish from getting rotten. Consider the case, when the salt has lost its property i.e., its saltiness. What will happen to the fish or other food item? It rots and starts to produce rotten smell. If we come to know that salt has lost its property, what will we do? We will throw it off. Similarly, Christian life must have certain values, to preserve the world from getting rotten. We are called to be the salt for all mankind. If we can t make a difference in the world, or if we are living as per the standards of the world, what will happen to this world? Think. 12

13 It will rot down in its filthy things. Losing our identity for the worldly passions will make us unworthy for His kingdom. Think what happened to our relation with our God. Are we maintaining the saltiness to preserve the world? Or have we lost our saltiness? Come back to God. Or else, people will trample over us. Verse: We are called the light of the whole world. Light makes things visible. Absence of light causes darkness. Know who we are. We are the light of the whole world. i.e., we are called to illuminate this world. We can illuminate the world only by having an illumination inside. If we have the illumination inside, we don t need to light someone up, but, allow our light to be shared. Our light is not our own. We are a steward of the Master. Never hide our light within our safe and comfort zones. Put it up on a lampstand, so that everyone can see and feel it. We often hide our light in our safe zones-inhibitions, complexes and so on. God doesn t need our complex, He just need us to be a light which shines in the world. He needs our availability, not our abilities. If ability was the criteria for the selection, then, I would not be able to write this. God just needs our small beginnings. He can make us as a blessed person. Let our light be seen by the world. So that they can see the light and praise our Father in heaven. It s not for our glory that He poured His talents in us, but it is for the glorification of our Father in heaven. Never hide or turn off our light. Never crush our identity for worldly/ unholy passions. We are the temple of the living LORD. We cannot be the salt for all mankind & the light for the whole world unless we have humbleness and a constant relation with God. Spread the light to others. Make the world see Jesus dwelling in us. Be a role model before others. Have a Christ-like living. Let us fix our eyes firm on Him who can help us through this world and make us holy with His holy blood. 13

14 CHAPTER 6 LOVER OF MY ENEMIES MATTHEW: 5: You have heard that it was said, Love your friends, and hate your enemies. But now I tell you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may become the sons of your Father in heaven. For He makes His sun to shine on bad and good people alike, and gives rain to those who do good and to those who do evil. Why should God reward you if you love only the people who love you? Even the tax collectors do that! And if you speak only to your friends, have you done anything out of the ordinary? Even the pagans do that! You must be perfect-just as your Father in heaven is perfect. (New Living Translation) People always hate their enemies and loves their beloved ones. They won t accept both good and bad from their enemies. No one dares to love their enemies. But, Jesus Christ is saying to love our enemies. As, we are the children of God, we cannot go according to the world s pattern. By becoming different from the worldly standards, we are showing that we are the children of the heavenly Father. We depict how we are brought up in the family through our behavior. If our behavior is really bad, then, the people around us will surely murmur oh, who is this guy? Who brought him up? If we are being called as children of God, then show His standards through our behavior. Once we were enemies of God, but the unending love of God captured us and made us His own children. We should show His love through our ways, actions, talks and all our activities. Our God won t 14

15 show partiality. He pours blessings on both good people and bad people. If we are selfish, then God won t show His mercy upon us. Don t expect anything in return for our love. Our love should not have a give and expect policy, it must be always give, give and give. Be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. Don t let the world to spot blemishes on us. Live in the world, but never live for the world. Being perfect means, follow Him completely. Live in Him and be completely faithful to Him. Don t ever try to put a mask of perfection. God will rip off every masks. Be sincere in our life. Man s search for perfection leads to another imperfection and it continues. Come back to the LORD, only He can give the true perfection and meaning to our life. He is ever ready to help us. Start a new life as a child of God. Be gentle to others and show the standards as being a child of God. 15

16 CHAPTER 7 PART-TAKER OF DIVINE NATURE If there is a Divine nature, then it will surely have an opposite nature. I found that it is Ordinary nature (human nature). We can find many other words like earthly, unholy etc. but, according to the Holy Bible, it is ordinary (Example: Judges: 16: 17, the power of Samson was divine, he says, if my hair were cut, I would lose my strength and be as weak as anybody else. That means, he will be turned as a common, ordinary man.) The ordinary nature always longs towards the worldly things, its passions, fancies and its pleasures. And the divine nature, that is the nature of God, always directs us to Him. The ordinary nature and the divine nature will not go hand in hand. They always oppose each other. The divine nature will not dwell in us if we are being controlled by our self. God wants a complete control over us (He is not a gate crasher, He comes in only if we allow Him to come in). As the human nature is ungodly or sinful, we cannot reach God with this nature. So, when we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, we are getting an access to Him. Romans: 8: 6, To be controlled by human nature results in death; to be controlled by the Spirit results in life and peace. And so a person becomes an enemy of God when he is controlled by his human nature; for he does not obey God s law, and in fact he cannot obey it. Those who obey their human nature cannot please God. In the above verse, the results of being controlled by Human nature and the Spirit (Divine Nature) are explained. When being controlled 16

17 by human nature results in spiritual death, life and peace are the results of being controlled by Spiritual nature. Our life-ways, walks, talks and all our attitudes speaks about whom we are being controlled by. If we are speaking like a worldly man, we are controlled by human nature. In Romans 8: 1-17, St. Paul speaks about life in the Spirit. Those who are led by the God s Spirit are God s children. If we are His children, we need to show the standard of being so. Since we are His children, we will possess the blessings He keeps for His people, and we will also possess with Christ what God has kept for Him; for if we share Christ s sufferings, we will also share His glory. (Romans: 8: 17) Most people are following Christ to get material blessings, but God never promised us that our life will be easy on earth or He never promised all material blessings, instead He has promised us spiritual blessings. If the passions of the world is attracting us, we are not in His divine nature. To wear the divine nature, we need to shed our old behaviours, or we need to crucify our old self and we need to put on Christ so that people who look at us must see Christ. Yes! We are the part-takers of the divine nature and we have to express the same through our life. Let His nature influence others. Let His love flows to others. 17

18 CHAPTER 8 I M A LETTER 2 Corinthians: 3: 2, You yourselves are the letter we have, written on our hearts for everyone to know and read. In olden days, people used to write letters to their dear ones, telling about the happenings of their surroundings, about their health and so on. People used to write in their own handwriting or the ones who don t know how to write, seek the help of educated people from nearby. And also, the letters took few days to reach the destination too. But recently, they are replaced by s, whatsapp, Facebook, viber and many other social media and applications. What we miss in these social media and applications is the feel of true love and care that we got via the old handwritten letters. In the above said verse, St. Paul is reminding us that, we are the letters of God. We know, for writing letters, we need some sort of things like-paper, stone tablets (ancient times) or things like that. But here, God is making us His letters by writing His commandments on our hearts. That means, when we walk, talk, or do anything, we must keep the word of God. As we are the letter of God, we must live as per His standards, because people around us are looking at us. I heard an incident like this. Once a mission team send a missionary to Nepal. He was not fluent in speaking and so he lacked the courage to speak up. As days went on, no people came to God. So, the mission team called him off from Nepal and send another person, who is well 18

19 in preaching, who is active in conducting public meetings and so on. As he went on conducting meetings, he came up to a place which he thought unreached, then he started speaking about Jesus Christ, about His life, His divine nature and His second coming. Some people came up and accepted Jesus Christ. After the meeting, a small kid came up to him and said, Sir, I know the Jesus whom you said about. He was here few days ago. But, I don t know where he is now. Do you know where he is? The missionary started crying and hugged the kid. The kid mentioned about the missionary whom the mission team called off as he was not a successful missionary. Our life speaks much louder than our words do. If we can t speak about Jesus, we can very well live like Him. We can live like Him only if we have a true relationship with Him. People are watching our life, is our life a true example before them? Or are we living as per the worldly standards? We are the living letters of Christ. We might not see how people are impacted by our life, but, it s sure that our life have an impact on others. 19

20 CHAPTER 9 I M A RACER Philippians: 3: 14, So, I run straight toward the goal in order to win the prize, which is God s call through Christ Jesus to the life above. In the passage Philippians: 3: 12-21, St. Paul is speaking about Running toward the Goal. He is saying that he is striving to win the prize for which Christ Jesus has already won him to Himself (Vs. 12, TEV). Be a man of focus, to attain the perfection through Christ. To have perfect focus, we need to do two things. Forget what is behind, (Vs. 13) Reach what is ahead. (Vs. 13) Forget what is behind: Forget our old behavior, our old traits, character. When we are joined to Christ, we are a brand new creation. The old has gone and a life has begun in us. So, we must not keep looking to get back our old self. It s completely gone. If our old traits are still haunting us, we are not moving forward or we are not truly on the race track. It s just like rowing a tied boat. God wants us to break the bondages that holds us back and to move forward in the race of faith. Reach what is ahead: What lies before is much important and valuable than what we have left behind. What lies ahead of us is a prize, which is God s call 20

21 21 through Christ Jesus to the life above in heaven. Each racer must know the value of his/her call. If we truly knows the value of this call, we will not stray away from His paths. We stray away from this path when the world enters us. Many have started this race, but they fell off from the track because of their love for this world. Hebrews: 11: 15-16, They did not keep thinking about the country they had left; if they had, they would have had the chance to return. Instead, it was a better country they longed for, the heavenly country. And so God is not ashamed for them to call Him their God, because He has prepared a city for them. We must have an attitude of thinking about our heavenly country than the country we have left. Years ago, an adventurous man walked on a steel rope which was tied over Niagara Waterfalls. After his successful mission, he came for the interview. When one of the interviewer asked, what made you so strong enough to do this? How have you overcame the fear about falling into this waterfall which is all the way twisting and turning? He replied with a smile, You have seen all these things, but I saw nothing but a small red bulb which was glowing on the other shore. Yes, as we are in this world, many things will come to tempt us to make us fall into the twisting turns of this world, but what a true Christian must see is nothing but Christ, who has laid His life for us. Whatever happens or even if the world is against us for our faith in Christ, He will never leave us alone. When He appears, let us proudly say as Paul says in 2 Timothy: 4: 7-8, I have done my best in the race, I have run the full distance, and I have kept the faith. and now there is waiting for me the victory prize of being put right with God, which the LORD, the righteous Judge, will give me on that Day- and not only to me, but to all those who wait with love for Him to appear. Let s have a confidence to say these words. He is waiting to receive

22 us. To give us the prize, for all who have run the race in full distance, within the law-to keep the faith. Yes, He is at the hand. Let our eyes be on Him. Let s move together to the finishing line of this race with true and firm faith. 22

23 CHAPTER 10 CONCLUSION We are never an accident, we are born with true purpose which can be completed only with the help of God. For the ones who feel like being lost in the passions of this world, come back to God. God allows U-turns. The purpose about us cannot be carried out by someone else. We are His unique creation. When we feel like we are broken and beyond repair, give ourselves to God-He can make us as a new creation, When we feel like an orphan-remember He is our Father, When we feel like we are unworthy of His grace-he made us His dwelling place, When we feel like we don t have any qualities-god made us the salt and the light of this world, When we feel like we have enemies-he created us with His divine nature and as the lovers of enemies, When we search for our purpose on this earth-remember God created us as His letters, When we feel like weary and tired of our life-remember we can t lose our sight, we are the racers on the track of faith. All these shows that God is everything to us. Many more points and sections can be added to these chapters. He needs our hearts, not our dreams. 23

24 Are we ready to give ourselves to Him? To be molded in His own will and design? He is our Heavenly Father who loves to hear from us, who loves to laugh with us, who loves to hold our hands even through the deepest darkness of our life. Let His love shines on us, let His joy be our joy, let the things that hurts the His heart hurt us. Let us be completely conformed to Him, in all our ways. Let the world see Jesus dwelling in us. Let He be our Master, let s submit ourselves to His mighty hands. Our Savior is coming soon. May GOD bless you!!! 24

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