When I look back on other times in my life, it seems like it was someone else’s life. I was in high school with big hair. In my twenties, I was wearing suits in the corporate world. At age 30, I had dirt under my nails and was riding horses and wearing jeans and boots. I have many different looks and many different pasts.

The enemy tries to tell us that our identity is what we did or what was done to us. We need to remember that we are what God says we are because God sees things in us that we don’t see in ourselves.

In 2 Corinthians 5:17 it reads, “..if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” Just in case there is confusion about what it means to be in Christ, I have a way for you to think about what it means.

I saw a cute purse in a magazine that looked like it was covered in plastic sparklies, and I hoped it was
on sale for $19.95. I read the caption, and it was a diamond encrusted purse at a mere cost of $400,000. It wasn’t covered in plastic sparklies after all, but it was covered in real diamonds. What this purse was made of no longer mattered, I couldn’t see that anymore because of the encrusted diamonds.

The purse’s value came from its covering of diamonds, and when we are in Christ, we are covered by him. Our covering is based on his actions, not our own. God sees Jesus, instead of our messes. We don’t have to worry about trying to establish ourselves because we are en-Christed or in Christ (much like the purse was encrusted with diamonds).