Hello, my name is .
If you were to fill in the blank, how would you identify yourself?
Many of us self-identify based on the lies we believe about ourselves or the labels that are placed on us by other people, rather than the truth about who we are in Christ.
Matthew West reminds us that the search for true identity begins by looking outside of ourselves to the One who created us. We can cling onto God’s word to help us understand who we are and whose we are as children of the one true king.
“2 Corinthians 5:17 is one of my favorite verses and it says, ‘If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation…’ and it’s very definitive it says, ‘…the old is gone and the new has come!’”
Matthew points out that even after we’ve accepted our new identity in Christ, it doesn’t mean that we won’t struggle to remember our true identity.
“Even though you made a choice to be in-Christ like the scripture says, and even though you’ve taken up a new identity as a new creation or a child of the one true king, it’s not that the devil then goes, ‘well I lost one to the good side,’ and then he goes on to try to attack somebody else and lets up on us.”
“In fact, when you feel the battle heat up and the devil tries to get you to look behind you, as opposed to in front of you, that’s a sign that you’re actually headed in the right direction and that your heart is tilted in the right direction. Your heart is for God and the enemy hates that.”
“What I’ve found is that more of a commitment to make to serve Christ and to live in my identity of the child of the one true King, the more the devil’s going to come after me. I might know that I’m a new creation, but on my weakest days and worst moments, I still feel a lot of that old stuff come back, so for me it’s a daily struggle.”
Matthew encourages us to meditate on God’s truth and remember that we are not alone in the identity struggle. He refers to Jeremiah 29:11,
“It’s a daily struggle, it’s a daily grind, but before that there’s a daily promise that, ‘God knows the plans he has for us, plans to prosper and not to harm us. Plans to give us a hope and a future.’
We need to learn how to replace the lies of the enemy with the truth of God’s Word.
“I believe that God has a plan to reach out – once and for all – and wipe those lies off of all of our name tags and replace it with the truth of who we are in Him.”
Matthew West is a four-time GRAMMY® nominee, a multiple-ASCAP Christian Music Songwriter/Artist of the Year winner and Dove Award recipient, and was awarded an American Music Award (2013), a Billboard Music Award (Top Christian Artist, 2014), a K-LOVE Fan Award (2016), and named Billboard’s Hot Christian Songwriter of the Year (2016). He is author of , a book based on his hit song “Hello, My Name Is”.
Your true identity in Christ
