McAlder Blog

What a great start to the school year! We’re already seeing the ways God is bringing this year’s spiritual theme, Made New, to life in the hearts and lives of our students. This month, we’ll be looking at how being made new involves transformation through having a new identity in Christ.

For many, if not most of us, the question of what defines us—what makes us who we are—is one that is never far from focus. Our highly commercialized culture naturally floods us with opportunities to feel inadequate. Does your daily life measure up to the perfectly crafted image presented by a social media influencer? Of course not! And yet, it’s almost inevitable that we overtly or subtly hear the message, “You’re not good enough.”  

The question of identity, then, begins to find its answer not with hope but with a problem. You may think of your identity as being rooted in being an involved parent, a kind person, a hard worker, or even a successful entrepreneur. At the end of the day, though, you know that you do those things imperfectly. When we build our identity on performance in any of these areas, we are setting ourselves up to fail to meet a standard; and the answer we’re left with is to make ourselves better.

In the book of Romans, Paul suggests another way. What if your life was defined not by what you’ve done or what you will do but by the saving work of Jesus Christ? What if you could give up your sense of self-definition and instead place your faith in the one who sees every single one of your imperfections and gave himself as a sacrifice to be with you?

In Romans 3, Paul famously writes, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith,” (Romans 3:23–25, NIV). In a strange way, all of the influencers and advertisements are right—you’re imperfect, you don’t really measure up, there are some ways you need to get better.

However, what Paul is saying goes further and offers hope that money, time, and effort can’t buy. You’ve sinned. You fall short. Welcome to being a human. God, through the perfect life, death, and resurrection of Christ, is offering you a gift of redemption, and that gift is received by faith. And when we accept that gift, an identity transformation occurs. I am a flawed father, a flawed husband, a flawed son, a flawed friend, a flawed brother, a flawed teacher, a flawed employee—but by God’s grace, those imperfections don’t have the final say.

Throughout the rest of this month, we will be studying how, throughout Romans, Paul gives us several examples of what this new identity can look like in practice. We’ll see that those who are in Christ are no longer “slaves to sin,” but rather slaves to righteousness (Romans 6:14–16). We’ll see how this identity involves being adopted as children of God and how he is forming us into members of one body in Christ.  

Our prayer is that you would join us in study and reflection this month as you continue to embrace an identity that is rooted in the work of Christ and that you would encourage others in your families, neighborhoods, and church communities to do the same.

“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” —Colossians 2:6-7 (NIV)