guest post by the amazing Julie!

Hello there everyone! 

I'm so excited to have one of my best blogging friends guest post for me! This is Julie and she is absolutely amazing! It is crazy how we just clicked when we started talking! She is the best! Not only that but she an extremely talented writer and photographer. If you haven't joined her blogging family, you are missing out. Well, what I am I doing here talking? Take it away Julie! 

Hello there! I’m Julie, and I blog over at an anchor for the soul. I’m SO excited to be posting for the lovely Lauren while she’s away having a blast at camp (totally jealous).

Today I want to talk about something that God has placed on my heart to share with y'all. I've been thinking about having an identity in Christ a whole lot lately. It’s something you can say and think a million times, but never truly understand. And I feel that was my exact situation for a while. Being identified in Christ is a lot more than just calling yourself a Christian, going to church, and reading your Bible. It takes so much more from you than that. It takes your whole heart, your everything. 

Because of Jesus and what He did so selflessly and beautifully on the cross, we can have this new identity, this new name in Him. Because of Jesus, we are looked upon by God to be blameless, sinless, and His. We are called to be children of Christ. We are called to find our identities in Him alone.

This world gives us so many ways to opt-out of doing that. People define themselves by their jobs, their status as a mother or father, their husband or wife, their accomplishments, or their failures. God doesn’t see us that way. He sees us as His beloved, precious children. And He wants us to see ourselves that way too! Ephesians 1:5 says, “In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will”. His pleasure and will. God is so so pleased when we see ourselves as He does. When we identify ourselves in His holy name.

I realized that truly identifying myself in Christ means that I am wholly His, wholly devoted to being a servant to the Lord. And defining myself as such. If anyone asked, that above all, I am a sinner set free with Jesus’ blood, changed inside and out, and given grace upon grace by His love and sacrifice. I am a daughter of God who will make His goodness known. I am God’s loved creation. That’s who I am, and who I will be for my whole life now that I’ve been found in Christ. Nobody can take that away from me. And nobody can take that away from you either. Let us rejoice in His greatness today, and be grateful we can find our true identities in our Creator!