Who Defines You?
Today's Verse
22Then Paul stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious.23For as I walked around and examined your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore what you worship as something unknown, I now proclaim to you.24The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands.25Nor is He served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.26From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands.27God intended that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.Acts 17:22–27 · BSB
The Devotion
The people of Athens had so many idols, but they didn’t want to leave one out and make one of them mad accidentally. So, they made an altar to the “unknown God.” Paul told them that we exist because God exists. The only way you can know who you really are is by knowing the One Who made you. St. Augustine once said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” Who made you is the only one who can tell you who you are made to be.
So, the question is, “How can I know God?” In John 17:3 Jesus said “this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (NKJV). The way to know God is to know His Son, Jesus Christ in a personal relationship. The Bible calls this relationship being “born again.” When you’re born again, everything changes – including your identity!
The identity that God gives us through Jesus brings security that is out-of-this-world because it’s security and peace that is not from this world. That’s what Jesus said in John 14:27: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you” (NLT).
When the world says you are an accident, God says you are His child.
When the world says you’re worthless, God says I bought you with a price.
When the world says you’re good for nothing, God says I want to use you.
When everyone abandons you, God says I’m a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
When you lose your job, your spouse walks out, and all your friends abandon you, God says you are saved, sealed, and secure in His love. He says “I will never leave you or forsake you.”
When your identity is found in the cross,
You are forgiven.
You are accepted.
You are healed.
You are known.
You are whole.
You are free.
You are loved.
Greatness begins when you shift from ignorance about your identity to security in your identity.
Lord, help me be secure in my identity for you today, for You alone have given me physical life and eternal life. I ground my mind, my body, my spirit, my soul in you, the one who created me, saved me, and knows me.
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