Peeling Identity.

2 Corinthians 5:17. It states, in regard to correct identity, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” 

We quote it but behold many new and more advanced believers live lives that are maybe more or less improved versions of their pre-believing states of being. Particularly once a certain “plateau” is reached in one’s growth within church walls, there seems to be a tapering off of our upward improvement spiral.

In most people there exists “that one issue” – a central problem that was never reconciled within them, which still proves our sinful state before God. Whenever one stumbles upon it again in real-time, or one is reminded of it, “the new creation” we now supposedly are, seems to instantaneously slip away. Who are we, after such a thing seems to occur within us? So much for a chiseled-in-stone fact of our identity the Bible seems to insist on…

We have the appearance of a paper-mache version of ourselves. Underneath we may indeed be that which 2 Corinthians speaks of, but on the outside, we still appear as our old selves. Every time we look in a moral/behavioral mirror, we see the things we once were, even if we are not what the mirror claims us to be.

Then why is it that we still look like our former selves to some degree or another? Why does it layer over our “true identity” as if we don’t embody it? How did Paul the Apostle go from a killer of believers to multiplying them (to this day!)? How did Peter go from blue-collar work, to becoming one of the most famous believers in history?

They did something we don’t. At some point, they were forced to question the status quo of their existence – The mentor that feels like a confidant, that is unknowingly also a ceiling of growth in your life- or the church whose involvement you thrive on to the detriment of your need of greater spiritual independence. It is the biological family one still identifies with for a sense of social context. It is the payroll that provides emotional security in the face of a tumultuous world. It is the spouse that one fears to lose if one changes too far into Christ’s image.

And to make it even more confusing, each time God wishes to confront one of these deeply accepted status quo’s in a follower’’s life, the church seems (more often than not in my experience) to argue the wrong side: as if change could occur without letting go of the things we like (and are socially accepted). For this reason they plateau, and for this reason you may as well. They grind away at themselves with Bible verses and Christian efforts, but do not undergo the pain of loss for the gain of Christ whenever He starts prodding someone to become aware of their true, detrimental circumstances.

But after a few of these accepted obedient losses (which result in gains in Christ), we realize that a strip of paper-mache of our old selves gets peeled off, and underneath was that true identity 2 Corinthians speaks of all along. It was indeed a fact chiseled-in-stone – and it can be felt. Now the moral/behavioral mirror shows us a version of ourselves that agrees with what the Bible has to say in the area of loss.

Teal Mentoring exists to help people identify their status-quos, to encourage the real believer underneath the paper-mache, in hopes of maximizing the potential of Christ in a believer.

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