In this video from Gospel Above All with Pastor J.D. Greear, author and Bible teacher, Jen Wilkin, talks about how we often focus on defining our own identity before focusing on what God’s identity is.
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The entire video is above, and the complete transcript is below.
J.D. GREEAR:
I’ve heard you talk a lot about how our view of the gospel of God shapes our own self-image and that’s a huge thing that people talk about. So, unpack that a little bit.
JEN WILKIN:
It’s fascinating to me how much time we spend trying to identify “I am” statements that are of secondary importance, right? I mean I think you can even see it in our current worship music and you can hear it in a lot of things. Specifically I see it in things that are written for women. But I know that it can’t possibly be limited just to the women’s section of the Christian bookstore. Where we’re so consumed with reminding ourselves of who we are in Christ or who are in God. But we sometimes are forgetful to start with, “But who is God?”
Because the only way I can truly understand the beauty of who I am in Christ is to behold Christ. And so, it’s really important for us to answer those identity questions. We need to be able to answer the questions of who we are properly. But it’s starts by focusing on who Christ is.
J.D. GREEAR:
So if we’re gonna be in His image we’ve got to know His image.
JEN WILKIN:
Right. I think the statement is: We become what we behold. But we can’t conform to an image that we haven’t seen. We cannot begin to look like a face that we have never seen before.
And so we understand who Christ is through the Scriptures and that’s how we can say, “Now that’s a better thing. That’s what I would want to look like.”
