We were swimming in the ocean off the shores of Oahu when one of my children asked me if she could swim laps. Laps? In Hawaii? On vacation? Well, sure, yes! So off she went. Swimming back and forth parallel to the coast line towards and away from me. I served as the “it” line. This particular child swims on a swim team and enjoys the sport immensely. I just didn’t realize how much. It dawned on me as I was standing there watching her: Once a swimmer, always a swimmer. It didn’t matter that our family was thousands of miles away from home.
It’s the same idea with Jesus. Whether you’re in your home city or a million miles from home.
>Once you receive the love of Christ, always loved of Christ.
>Once you are redeemed in Christ, always redeemed in Christ.
>Once you are restored to Christ, always restored to Christ.
God doesn’t changed his mind and resist, return, or reject you.
Once we accept Jesus as our Savior and salvation for us, we embrace a new identity as a child of God. No matter what happens after this.
>Our life standing changes.
>Our life satisfaction changes.
>Our heart trajectory changes.
>Our home base changes.
Our collection of wrinkles accumulates. Our cluster of gray hairs accentuates. Our carload of worries accelerates. Life gets harder, and in the hardest, reinvented into something we struggle to recognize… …strangely, situationally, conditionally, circumstantially.
Inevitably, seasonal placement finds a new home as time passes. But our soul position never changes with the changing of times. Because God protects our identity in Him for His children to remember whom they belong to. Through grace, God accomplishes this on the cross. God sends His Son, Jesus Christ, to struggle on the cross as a man, to die on the cross as a man so that He could destroy death as a God.
Our identity in Christ does not fall apart, fade away, or freak out. God guarantees our forever identity in Him through the death and resurrection of His SonJesus. The transaction has been consummated and credited to us. God’s choice to give up His Son was a raw deal for Him, but a real deal for us.
Jesus only dies once. This price is enough to purchase in whole, our identity. Rejoice in how much your heavenly father loves you and willingly sacrificed His Son for all that you are, all that you are not, and all that you ever hope to be. His passionate desire for you is to live fully and freely as you wisely and wildly figure out this new identity every day. Let your heart trajectory change in a way that it pulls you closer to Jesus. That’s the Real Truth.