My Identity is in Christ, not in my Bank Account

My worth and my identity is not in myself, it is not in my status, or lack thereof, it is not in my bank account. No, my worth, my identity, is in Christ and in Him alone.

For a long time, I based my identity,  which I equate to my worth, on what I owned. I was running against the calendar, or maybe towards it; trying to validate my worth. I was supposed to marry by 28 and have my first child by 30. I was to be living in my own apartment in one of the upmarket estates with my perfect family. I was to be taking home an amazing salary, driving a compact SUV at the very least. But something happened…I turned the dreaded 3-0, with none of the above.

At 30, I resigned from a respectable job to start my own business and suddenly I had no identity. You see, even though I didn’t have all the things I thought I should have had by then, at least I had my job. My job was my identity. I had a very good title and I worked for a global organization. Now at 30 with my own start up, I had to face the reality of my life. I could no longer go on random coffee dates or spend KSh. 10,000 on a dress on a whim. My bank account looked at me, and I felt as though it was mocking me. I was surviving on my credit card ( read, I was incurring credit card debt) and the future was looking very bleak to say the least.

As I sat in a public bus, disappointed in my life, watching fancy cars pass me by, a small voice whispered in my heart, “Your worth is not in what you have or don’t have, your worth is in me.” And just like that, I felt as though a heavy load was lifted off my shoulders. I realized that I had lived my life knowing that the more wealth one had, the more worthy they were. I defined my relatively small social circle on this fact. I excluded myself from opportunities based on this fact. And to make myself feel better, I excluded those I deemed lesser than, from socializing with me. I believed the less money you had, the less value your life held. Elitist, yes, but sadly this was the case. To make matters worse, I was now among those whose lives were “less valuable.” What a lie from the enemy!

My worth, my value, my identity is in Christ and Him alone. Job stated in Job 1:21, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked I shall depart.” Job said this in worship to God after he had lost all his material possessions and his children. And even after worshiping God, the test continued. His wife urged him to curse God and die, which he did not do. Rather, he held steadfast in God and in the appointed time, God restored to Job all he had lost and more.

This is such a great lesson for the Body of Christ. Our identity cannot be our wealth. If God is to trust us with His gold and His silver, we need to understand that “the Lord gives and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”Job 1:21

Why will we still praise Him? Why will we still hold our heads up in spite of what we have or don’t have? We will do this because like the Apostle Paul, we will know that even if we have nothing; we possess everything (2 Corinthians 6;10). We possess Christ and He is everything. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made (John 1:3). When you possess Christ, you possess all that He has, for He now lives His very life through you (Galatians 2:20).

No longer will I define myself or others based on my bank account or marital status, for that is foolishness. My identity is based solely on Christ, who purchased my very life with His precious, invaluable Blood.

Hi there, my name is Noni and I am a possessor of Christ 🙂