A note from the editor:

The following is the final part of a series by Kay Roe. It is both personal and theological, and it beautifully challenges some of the most unhealthy teachings floating around the world of Christianity. While this article stands on its own, we recommend you also check out Parts 1, 2, and 3.

“Follow Your Heart”

My sister used to watch the Disney Channel a lot when she was growing up. It seemed like every show and movie indoctrinated kids with the message, “Follow your heart.” On the other hand, the Christian media I consumed in my youth sent me the opposite message. “Your heart is evil; you can’t trust it.” This piece of information caused me to fear – I feared doing the wrong thing, possibly without even trying. How could I help it? I needed to listen to other voices for direction, since I couldn’t trust my own instincts. “Always follow the true path, the straight and narrow. What does the Bible say? What do my church leaders say? What do my parents say? What’s the Christian stance on this topic?”

Have you ever considered what happens if the church leaders are wrong? If they’ve been interpreting the Bible inaccurately? What about parents or other mentors? What if everything you thought was true wasn’t free of deception after all? Who can you trust, and how can you gain access to deception-free information?

And once you did, how would you know it was really the truth?

This has happened before: In the early 1500s, a relatively small group of people critiqued the church leaders of the day and condemned their interpretation of the Bible, God’s character, and major doctrinal issues. The result? A reformation that led to a totally new world of Christianity, including a new acceleration of the Gospel throughout the planet. For the reformers, this took a lot of guts. It takes a deep amount of faith to promote beliefs that the vast majority of spiritual “authorities” reject (not to mention having both your social life and physical life on the line).

And so, I wonder: If an entire swath of the church and its key leadership could be misinformed, couldn’t it happen again within the current world of Christendom? How can we know we are hearing and following the real truth?

“Be True to Yourself”

The other Disney media matra I heard in my teens was “be true to yourself.” As I was learning about my own personality as a separate entity from my parents, I didn’t yet know who “myself” was. I heard from the world of Christianity that I was a sinner with a sinful nature, saved by the grace of God – I suppose that was a start. And so I remember constantly praying, “Lord, take away my flesh and fill me with Your Spirit.” I was ever subconsciously chanting, “Take away myself and fill me with You.” Anything good I ever did must have been selfishly motivated – even those prayers. It was a vicious cycle: I only wanted to do the right thing so I could be proud of myself as a “good Christian.” I wanted to be rid of that very pride as well. But why? For my own sake. So… selfishness.

I could never be truly good. If I was trying to be good, that was motivated by the wrong reasons, so my good deeds were ultimately evil. I put my faith in Christ alone, knowing all my works were as filthy rags as far as getting to heaven goes… but those deeds seemed worthless even on their own. I seemed worthless, even as a Christian. And if I didn’t see myself as worthless, if I hoped that maybe there was something good about me – wouldn’t that be pride? And pride was sin. So, I was evil.

Even though I accepted Jesus’ sacrifice on my behalf, I still viewed myself, my core, my identity, as messed up. I believed myself to be a daughter of God, yet I felt that anything that had “me” on it was intrinsically tainted, and only God was pure. He adopted me, but I was nothing more than “snow-covered dung” (as Luther is believed to have said) – gross at my core, with a façade called Jesus allowing the Father to deign to accept me as His daughter.

Then one day I heard a quote from St. Augustine: “Love God, and do as you please.” Do as I pleased? How was that possibly a good thing? How could Augustine trust his heart that much when I, also a child of God, who wanted to obey Him so much, still doubted my every step?

The answer: He understood identity.

You can “follow your heart” when your heart is pure, and you know who you are.

“To the pure all things are pure.” (Titus 1:15, NKJV)

Was I pure?

Freedom in Identity

Through a gracious gift of God, I learned that I didn’t have to battle a sinful nature my entire life. I began living with a greater freedom than I had ever experienced before. I had a new confidence to trust that my motives were pure (because I knew who I was as a righteous and justified – i.e. “pure” – daughter of God), rather than constantly striving for a false humility for my accomplishments (so that I wouldn’t feed my “inherent” pride). I began to feel extreme gratefulness for the total victory Jesus had accomplished for me. I began to let myself believe that our dreams were already a reality – our dream of “someday getting there” to a place of holiness and goodness; of being free from the battle between good and evil. Because I learned that Good has already won.

And I began sinning less. Sinning is missing the mark. When we’re in so much fear of making a mistake, we tend to make more mistakes. We are afraid to trust ourselves when we believe that within us lies a great evil. But we have nothing to fear – nothing but fear itself. We are not children of fear, but of love. The apostle John wrote, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18). Because of Jesus, your true identity is a person made perfect in love.

Each of us must learn who we really are – a child of God. A child of Love itself. Fear can torment us just by existing in our lives. Fear is brought on by false beliefs about who we are, as I experienced by believing I was evil. When we realize that we are full of the unconditional love of God, fear has no place left in us.

Who Are You?

The first step to finding the truest answer to the question “Who am I?” is to ask another one: “Who is God?”

First off, let me be clear that Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit are one God: The Trinity. I won’t go deeper into that topic here and now, but let’s take that as a given.

Next, let’s learn about this Triune God’s nature.

The New Testament reveals who Jesus is.

• His actions were always perfect and motivated by love.
• He is the Truth, Life itself, the Way. (John 14:6)
• He is wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption for us. (1 Cor. 1:30, “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”)
• John tells us that God (the Trinity) is Love. “…for God is love.” 1 John 4:8b
• As for the Holy Spirit, “…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” (Gal 5:22-23a)

How does knowing who God is and what He is like help us understand ourselves?

Brace yourself: You and Jesus are one. Marriage is a picture of this. Spiritually, it’s like the Trinity extended itself to include a fourth member, and just as the Father and Son and Spirit are connected as one, God’s children have now been grafted into that love circle as well.

“‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” (Eph. 5:31-32)

“…that they [the church members, Jews and Gentiles] may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me.” (John 17:22b-23) …Whoa. Just as the Father and the Son are one? Jesus is in us the same way? That sounds like it borders on scandalous. Heretical. Maybe as “heretical” as 95 theses on the door of a church.

Jesus is in You. You are united with Him, married into God’s family, and also pureblooded sons and daughters of Father God. (Paul called everyone listening to him, even Gentiles who did not yet believe in Jesus as Savior, “His offspring” in Acts 17:28-29).

Your identity is Christ’s identity. He called both Himself and you the light of the world. We are Him in this world. That means (brace yourself again) – we are love, we are joy, we are peace, we are goodness. We are the things that Jesus is. Jesus defines us. He shows us who we are. You see something in Jesus? That something is in you. Crazy – but true. We are not snow-covered dung. We are pure snow. This is our birthright, our inheritance, our identity.

We don’t always act out who we really are, because at times our hearts are deceived. I mentioned fear before. Fear can make us act crazy out of desperation, or feel incapable of any action at all. Fear is not a part of our true identity. Our minds need to be renewed to the truth of what God says about us.

This is the biggest deception of all – not knowing who we really are.

When you believe you are someone you are not, your actions will be all out of whack. We’ve got to get an understanding of our identity first, rather than focusing on behavior modification, as I was trying to do. Actions are the fruit of our beliefs.

It’s up to us whether we allow sin, fear, shame, and guilt to control us, or we walk in the freedom that we truly have as our birthright. We aren’t mutant children of the Spirit and the flesh. Sin only has power through deception – through the false belief that we are still enslaved to it.

When we know who we are in Christ, we can trust our hearts. It’s a lack of knowing who we truly are that is the first sign that we may be deceived in some way.

Do you think of yourself as any of the following:

• evil
• incapable of loving
• incapable of being loved
• unholy
• bad
• prone to sin
• prone to failure
• working hard but it never feels like enough
• unworthy of good things coming to you
• fallen
• wretched
• untrustworthy

If so, even if you see those things manifesting themselves in your life, I promise you, that is not who you truly are.

You are:

• pure
• good
• capable of unspeakable kindness
• worthy of good things coming to you
• loving
• blessed
• capable of glorious goodness
• highly favored
• lovely
• holy
• lifted up
• capable of the highest success
• lovable
• more than enough, just for being you
• a conqueror
• trustworthy
• faithful
• honest
• beautiful

I know this about you, because it’s who Jesus is. And not only did He die to make this a reality in your life, but it’s also what He created you for and predestined you to be; not just in the afterlife, but here and now as well.

Experiencing it…

The first step to manifesting these qualities and living them out is to believe what God says about you to be true. Read over that list of who you are again. Write out your own list of attributes you know God says you are, based on His promises and character.

See yourself being Jesus to the world around you, bringing life and healing to others, having a deep connection with the Trinity. Visualize this. Feel yourself being who you were always meant to be. Envision who you always thought you would be when you got to heaven – only being that way now. This is how the truth of our identity goes from head knowledge about ourselves to manifested reality in our lives. Visualize your true identity as a present reality, not a future desire. Feel the truth that God says about you.

This is part of experiencing the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Jesus prayed, “Your kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.” Here and now. We are His hands and feet. Greater things than those Jesus did will we do, here on earth. Do not limit God by putting restrictions on the things He says about you.

What God says about you is more trustworthy than what your flip-flopping heart says about you. And when you realize and experience that Christ is in you, you will start trusting your true heart in a whole new way.