Personal Identity: See Yourself as God Sees You

personal identity

Ladies, in this first blog post in our series exploring our true identity, we have to ask: How do you see yourself? As God sees you — or as the world sees you?

Are you basing your personal identity on your job title? Your marital status? Your dress size? The car you drive? The volume of “Likes” your selfies and posts garner on Facebook? Be honest: you’ve ranked and compared yourself to others in all or most of these areas, right?

With so much societal pressure and manipulation to be “successful,” it can be dang hard to love and accept ourselves. To get through even a single hour without beating ourselves up. (Are you trying to be the perfect mom? Wife? Daughter? Employee? Christian? Ack!)

So many women—even Christian women—are unhappy, unfulfilled, and despondent on a daily basis. Why? Because they’re not living out their true personal identity. Are you among this group of ladies who are utterly exhausted with trying to do enough, be enough, like themselves enough to fend off self-condemnation?

The good news: this vicious cycle of comparison and self-judgement can be smashed like a mirror if we’ll base our identities on the only criteria that matters: what God thinks of us!


So, What Makes You You?

Let’s start this blog series about your true personal identity with who you are NOT. You are not your physical attributes, your education, your career, or your accomplishments. You are not your ethnic origin, your family pedigree, or your credit rating. These are merely outer layers of your identity.

Let’s look at three myths that our culture swears determine our worth: our appearance, our performance, and our status. Three myths that you’ve probably fallen for hard. Three myths you need to shatter!

Myth #1: Your Image Determines Your Identity

If you’re insecure about your physical appearance, you’ve likely bought into the lie that you need to meet society’s standards of beauty. Teased, tanned, toned, thin—is it ever enough??? Society daily bombards us with messages that subtly and overtly tell us that beautiful people are more valuable, loved, wanted, happier. This wrong messaging leads many women to beauty products and plastic surgery to “fix” what they become convinced is wrong with themselves.

Yet even after all that, some women can’t feel beautiful. Because they haven’t fixed the root problem of viewing themselves as flawed.  

Ladies, as God’s unique creations, we are of infinite value and worth! Our looks don’t change God’s view of our intrinsic beauty. Won’t you stop handing others the power to make you feel good about yourself? 

Myth #2: You Are What You Do

This myth suggests that our performance determines our worth and personal identity. Ladies, we live in a task-oriented society that assigns value based on how much and how well persons do their jobs. Unfortunately, the measure of competence is typically comparison to others. Which is why so many of us feel threatened when others succeed. Workaholics almost always base their identity on their performance. If you’re unable to satisfy your need to perform, you probably find it very difficult to relax.

As a wise person once noted, we were created as human beings, not human doings.

Ladies, won’t you stop striving in order to feel valued? You’re already so highly valued by the creator of the universe!

Myth #3: You Are Somebody Only If You Have Power

Have you ever asked yourself, “How important am I?” If you feel the need to constantly assess your level of influence or control over others, you’ve bought into this myth. Let it go. The Bible is clear that our identity as God’s children does not depend on our status here on earth. Rather, God asks us to humbly demonstrate a servant’s heart.

Power, even if we achieve it, is fleeting.

Ladies, whether you are regarded as a somebody or a nobody by others, God views you as having tremendous worth and value. Won’t you trust Him on that? 

Next week we’ll talk about the mistaken identity that many of us walk around with. Don’t miss it!


Our True Personal Identity

Part of rightly understanding our true personal identity requires that we know how God sees us. As our loving creator, God says two things to us: “You are my child,” and “You are chosen.” Do you sense God’s heart toward you? Can you wrap you mind around the truth that God was thinking about you before He even created the world?

Let that truth sink into the depth of your heart and mind. It may take a lot of determination on your part, but as you begin to realize just how valuable you are in God’s eyes, you will be able to break the chains that keep you from accepting and loving yourself. Ladies, we CAN drop the burden of what other people think—and the judgments we hold for ourselves!


This blog series is based on Josh’s book See Yourself as God Sees YouIt is our prayer that during this series you come to recognize and accept your true personal identity! God couldn’t love you more!