Dear Parents,
This week in High Life Sunday school we turned our conversation on identity from all the false influences we previously discussed to what God’s word has to say about our identities. It would be inadequate to tell the youth the kinds of influences to avoid – sin, circumstances, fear, culture, without telling them where to look to find the right picture of who they are!
We spent a lot of time in the Scripture this week looking up different verses about who we are created to be and who we are in Christ. Below are a few of the highlights.
- Genesis 1:27 tells us that we were made in the very image of God. All those unique and wonderful aspects of our identity, they come from his identity!
- 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us that we are new creations in Christ. Our old, sinful self is gone if we have accepted Christ.
- Ephesians 2:10 calls us God’s workmanship, or his masterpiece, created to do good works. We’re not here on a random course, meandering through life. God has designed us for certain tasks that he planned for us to do in our time on earth.
- Romans 12:6-8 lists many of the gifts that we are given as believers in Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit. Each of us, the passage says, is gifted, and no gift is of higher importance than another.
- Psalm 139:13-14 proclaims that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. All of God’s creations are wonderful!
- Hebrews 12:1 states that we each have a race marked out for us. Along with Ephesians 2:10, we can understand through this verse that God does have a path marked out for our lives. He has planned things for us to do.
- Galatians 5:1 tells us that we are free! We do not need to allow ourselves to be enslaved by sin. Jesus blood frees us from sin’s power over us.
Each of these verses tells us something wonderful and something TRUE about ourselves. In spite of knowing these truths, how often we still call ourselves by lesser names – unloved, unwanted, not good enough, failure. We say any number of negative things about ourselves. But this is what the God of the universe has spoken over you and me – loved, masterpiece, chosen, freed, a new creation. These are the names that we need to embrace as our identity. The students were encouraged to choose a favorite passage from this week’s lesson to hold on to as a reminder of the truth about their identity, one that combats a lie they struggle with believing too much. I hope each student was able to see through these passages how much they are loved by their Father and that he has a good plan for their lives.
Blessings,
Catherine