Gender and Identity

 What is "identity"? Google defines it as "The fact of being who a person is." It's a "fact" of "being". So according to Google, identity is based on fact, not opinion.

People may identify us a certain way, or by certain distinctions (like skin color, religious beliefs, academic accomplishments, popularity, physical ability, etc.), but how they identify us is not the same as who we are. Who I am is not defined by what other people think of me, because those are opinions. I may identify as "male" or as "white" or as "Christian", but those identifications are not the same as an identity. Identity is based on facts, but who establishes those facts? We'll come back to this in a moment.

What is "gender identity"? Once again, Google defines this as "An individual's personal sense of having a particular gender." Unlike "Identity", this seems to be more subjective - its a "personal sense" as it relates to gender. So unlike "Identity", "gender identity" is based on personal opinion.

This terms gets used a lot in our culture right now. The movement surrounding it has separated gender from biological sex so that it has become something you choose rather than something you are born as. Within this movement, gender "no longer means only male or female. Instead, gender now takes into account identity and expression." Previously, gender and biological sex were the same thing - it was what you were born as. But now, its based on your opinion and how you want to express yourself.

This causes a lot of confusion for people - both within the movement and outside it. You might hear terms like "Gender Dysphoria", which is "a clinical term for unease or dissatisfaction. Gender Dysphoria is the feeling that your emotional and psychological identity doesn't match the biological sex you were born with." What this means is that gender is based more on opinion (or feelings) than on fact. What happens when we allow our feelings to dictate who we are? Well, usually this means that "who we are" changes whenever our feelings change. This is hardly a healthy way to live. It means that we can never really be sure of who we are, even in terms of gender, because it is based in something that changes (our feelings).

This becomes even more of a problem when it comes to the transgender movement. If we base our gender identity on how we feel about ourselves, and then surgically change our bodies to fit that feeling, what happens when our feelings change? What happens if surgery doesn't fix the dysphoria? What happens when we want to change back (if we want to change back)? This is one of the major dangers of the movement: it teaches that how you feel about who you are is more important than how you were born. From there it pushes you to physically alter your body to match your mind. The consideration that it is your mind that needs to be changed is rejected altogether. Why? Because the movement teaches that your opinion trumps reality.

I have interacted with a few people who have been a part of this movement (they have since left). One woman expressed that complications in the transition process forced her to stop. She took time to reflect on her options at that point, and as she thought about herself, she slowly came to realize that her dysphoria was not a confusion of being born with a man's brain into a woman's body. In reality, she was confused because she did not fit into the stereotypes that our society put on women. And because she did not fit those stereotypes, she felt as though she should have been a man - hence why she tried to transition. She has since done a lot of research into the movement and found that much of what is taught about gender identity and transgender ideology isn't based in fact at all. And its causing a lot more harm than it need to by pushing people as it does.

Let's bring this discussion back to identity. We discussed in last week's post that biblical sexuality is strictly binary: there is male and there is female. The Bible points to sex and marriage being between a man and a woman. The two are made one flesh; they are whole, complete. Deviations from this “norm” are sin, and an abomination to the LORD (if you have questions about this, I would recommend reading the post and asking questions there). One of the problems faced with this rise in gender identification is that people usually identify themselves AS their gender. That is WHO THEY ARE. So if someone identifies as gay, or lesbian, or transgender, and then I come along and share that the Bible says homosexuality is sinful, I am not just condemning their behavior, I’m condemning them (from their perspective). I’m saying that they are a sin. Not that they are a sinner (someone who sins) but that they ARE a sin. So they feel attacked, and naturally get defensive. This is particularly so for people who claim to be a Christian while also claiming to be gay, or lesbian, or queer, or transgender. What's really happening in those cases is that these people are claiming to have two identities. On the one hand, their identity is in Christ as a child of God, and on the other hand they are gay/lesbian/queer/etc. This mixes reality with opinion, and those things don't go together.

What does it mean to have our identity in Christ? Well, I don't have a Google definition for you this time. Instead, let's look to the Bible for some answers.

John 1:12 - "Yet to all who did receive [Jesus], to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God."

So those who are in Christ as children of God. That is how God views them.

Galatians 2:20 - "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

Colossians 3:1-4 - "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory."

2 Corinthians 5:17 - "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."

When we come to Christ in faith, our old self dies alongside him in his crucifixion on the cross. Then we are raised to life with him with a new self, the new creation. Essentially, who we used to be before coming to Christ dies. It is gone. It is done away with. We are then given a new self, a new identity in Christ.

The problem with the current LGBTQ+ and gender identity movement is that it emphasizes our personal experience and our own ideas about who we are over God's declaration of who we are. When we come to Christ, we put our old selves to death. However we identified ourselves before coming to Christ dies. Every desire, every fantasy, every aspect of who we were (as sinners worthy of eternal damnation) is done away with and become new in Christ. The apostle Paul writes about this in his letter to the church in Ephesus. He says that if they want to become fully unified and mature in Christ, this is what needs to happen.

Ephesians 4:17-24 - "So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles [non-believers] do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed. That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."

The life of the Christian is in direct contrast to the way of living of the people around them. Romans 12:2 says it like this: "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - His good, pleasing and perfect will."

When we become Christians, we surrender ourselves, our whole selves, over to God. We die to who we used to be and become new in our identity as children of God. He changes us, transforms us, and renews us. Over the course of our lives He makes us more like Jesus. That means our identity is not found in our gender, in our orientation, in our skin color, or anything else. Those things do not define us. Our identity is in Christ, and who HE says that we are.

So as you're thinking about identity, are you going to base who you are on feelings, or on the reality of who God says that you are? I know we focused on gender in this post, but this topic goes beyond that. We allow lot of things to affect how we think about ourselves. We allow so many influences to dictate who we are. This should not be. If you are in Christ, then you are who God says you are. Period. Base your identity on that reality, and not on feelings, opinions, or anything that the world says about you.

If you are experiencing confusion about your identity, whether it be related to gender, sexuality, or something else, please reach out and talk about it. Don't try to find the answers all by yourself. Look to the Word of God as your source of truth, and talk to someone who can help you discover who God says you are. Amen.

The Road So Far

 Last night we took some much needed time to stop and reflect on what we have learned so far this year. Volleyball was the name of the game for the evening and I don't know about everyone else, but I had a really good time.

As we moved into the "message" time, I opened with a brief overview of everything we had covered up to this point. Below you will see a simple illustration (drawn by yours truly) of the foundation for all of our messages this year.

You would not believe how long it took me to produce that simple image... Anyway, the heart above represents your life. It represents you. Everything we are talking about this year centers around how to live the Christian life in a non-Christian world. The cross represents Jesus Christ being at the center of your life and the book represents the Word of God (the Bible) as your basis for truth. You see, if we want to live the Christian life, we first must be sure that we are of the faith and that we are in submission to the Bible as our authority in life. If you don't believe in Jesus, or you don't trust the Bible as a reliable source of truth, then you will fail to live out the Christian life in this world. Everything else that we have talked about or will talk about this year is founded on the understanding that Jesus is Lord and the Bible is our authority. That means we look to Jesus and we trust His Word to teach us what is right and good.

The Bible tells us about the nature of mankind - that we are created in the image of God but are separated from Him because of our sin, which condemns us to death. Every person is born with a sin nature and is destined for death. On our own, there is nothing we can do bridge the gap and get to God. When we understand this about mankind, it helps us to see that apart from God we are all doomed. We are not basically good, we are not evolving into better or more perfect beings, and we are not all going to Heaven (apart from God, none of us are). This has HUGE implications for living the Christian life, because it means that if we are not going into the world and telling people about Jesus (as we are supposed to do) then they won't ever have access to God.

The Bible also tells us about our role in the world, and specifically how we are to relate to non-believers. In His famous "Sermon on the Mount" in Matthew 5-7, Jesus tells His disciples that they are to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. We broke that down to mean that we are to be blessings toward others (salt), doing good whenever and wherever we can. We are also to speak the truth whenever and wherever we can (light), shedding truth and light in an otherwise very dark world. Even if someone is in direct opposition to God and persecutes us as Christians, we are to speak the truth and demonstrate toward them the same kind of live and mercy that God showed us through Jesus Christ.

The Bible gives us a direct command when it comes to our relationship with our parents: "Honor your father and mother". We talked about the fact that "to honor" means "to obey". We are to obey our parents. And this is a serious command, as it sits right in the middle of the 10 Commandments. Its right up there alongside "Do not murder". And there is no caveat to this one either. There is no stated exception, like "obey them unless they are being quite unreasonable". We are to obey our parents, unless (yes, there is actually an exception) they tell us to do something that goes against the Bible. We obey God first, then parents. And if we do this, it will go a LONG way in helping us to have a good, healthy relationship with our parents.

The Bible completely obliterates any foundation for racism. In the beginning when God created Adam and Eve, He was starting the entirety of the human race from one set of parents. That means that all of us, no matter our skin tone, are able to trace our lineage back to the same common ancestors. We are ALL descendants of Adam and Eve, which means we are ALL one race - the human race. Therefore, skin tone should have absolutely no bearing on how we treat each other. No one is superior or better than anyone else, this is what the Bible teaches. We are equals in sin and separation from God, and those of us who have been saved are equals in the forgiveness and grace we have received in Jesus Christ.

The last two weeks we watched a YT video by Dr. Jason Lisle, in which he shared evidence from astronomy that supports the truth of the Bible. One of the benefits of seeing this evidence is that it encourages us in our faith, to know that what we believe to be true is supported by the world that God created. Knowing these evidences also helps us to have an answer for the hope that we have in Christ. When the people of the world come against us and accuse us of being crazy or stupid, we can show the rationality of our faith and stand our ground.

Most of our time last night was spent in a discussion, as I gave students the opportunity to voice any questions that had been raised but not answered in any of the previous messages. It started slow but it turned into a good discussion, and I am planning on having another one sometime in February of 2022. I hope you're able to be there and participate.

As we move forward this year, we will continue to tackle some of those big topics that the church is facing right now. We will discuss a biblical perspective on abortion, sexuality, social justice, and even politics. It is important for us, as Christians, to discuss these topics and come to a common understanding of how we should handle each of them from a biblical perspective. I fully expect there will be some hard conversations to come, but they will be necessary.

May the God of all peace be with you.

The Bible and "Race"

 Heyo! This is the second week of our look into a biblical perspective on some of the more pressing issues of our current culture. Last week we talked about our relationship with our parents (specifically focusing on what the Bible has to say about honoring and obeying our parents and how that plays into the relationship). This week we are looking at the topic of what our culture calls "race". We went through 11 different passages from the Bible, so bear with me as we read and unpack them together. This was a particularly interactive message time, and unfortunately I was not able to record all of the questions (or the corresponding answers) from the discussion last night.

Genesis 1:26-27 - “²⁶ Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ ²⁷ So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

When God created all things, and in this case, mankind, He made them all "according to their own kind". Mankind is particularly unique as we see here, in that God decided to make mankind in His image. Mankind was given special authority and dominion over God's creation, which springs from this image of God we bear. This is where we come from as a people; this is our beginning.

Romans 5:12 - “¹² Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned…”

This is part of a larger argument Paul (the author of Romans) is making to the church that is in Rome. The point he is making in this passage is that sin and death entered the world through one man (Adam) and thus affected all people. This point alludes to the fact that we are all (yes, all) descended from that one man. If we could somehow trace our lineages back to the very beginning, we would all reach the same common ancestors: Adam and Eve. If this were not so, then how could Adam's sin be passed down to us?

Acts 17:26-27 - “²⁶ From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.”

This supports Paul's statement in Romans, that we are all descended from common ancestors. From Adam and Eve came all the nations that exist today. God established each nation throughout history, including the United States of America, and He spread them out throughout the world, as we will see in the next passage.

Genesis 11:1-9 - “Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. ² As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. ³ They said to each other, ‘Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.’ They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. ⁴ Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.’ ⁵ But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. ⁶ The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. ⁷ Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.’ ⁸ So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. ⁹ That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.”

This is where the major divisions of language and ethnicity started. Up until this point in the history of the world, people spoke the same common language (not English) and probably all shared a close skin tone. When God confused the languages (by the way, "Babel" means confusion) and scattered people "over the face of the whole earth", that is when ethnic diversity would have begun to develop - based on diet and climate.

Romans 2:9-11 - “⁹ There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; ¹⁰ but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. ¹¹ For God does not show favoritism.”

This is an important point to make note of, because some people want to claim that God favored the Israelites over other people. It is true that God chose the Israelites as His people, and He did that because He was going to use them to bring about His plan of redemption for mankind (His plan to save them from that sin and death Paul was talking about). When it comes to God's judgment, or His mercy, there is no partiality given. It doesn't matter where you were born, those who do good will reap the benefits of doing good and those who do evil will reap the consequences of doing evil.

The issue in the Roman church was that the Gentile (this just means those that weren't Jewish) Christians were arguing with the Jewish Christians, and Paul was trying to help them settle their differences by focusing them on Christ. It didn't matter if they were Jewish or not, they were all "in Christ" and that is what was supposed to bring them together.

Matthew 28:18-20 - “¹⁸ Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’”

The fact that Jesus commands His disciples to go and make disciples of all nations tells us that His death paid the penalty for the sins of everyone, not just the Jews or any other particular ethnic group. People of every nation could find salvation through Him, which puts all people on an equal playing field.

John 13:34-35 - “³⁴ A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Within the body of Christ, within the church, we are called to love one another. It doesn't matter what differences there are between us, we must love one another just as Christ loved us.

Leviticus 19:34 - “³⁴ The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”

Even though the Israelites (the Jews) were called to be holy nation (this means they were to be set apart from other nations, distinguished from them), they were still commanded by God to treat foreigners (non-Jews) with love. If it makes the point clearer, let me use the word "immigrant" instead of "foreigner". Though there may have been ethnic differences, that did not justify treating someone with anything less than love.

Romans 3:21-24 - “²¹ But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. ²² This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

When it comes to sin, there truly is no difference between anyone. As human beings, we are all equally lost in sin, and equally incapable of earning salvation or attaining the glory of God on our own. We all fall short. In the same way, we are all equally (and freely) justified by God's grace through Jesus Christ. Not one of us is more deserving than another.

Colossians 3:5-11 - “⁵ Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. ⁶ Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. ⁷ You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. ⁸ But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. ⁹ Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices ¹⁰ and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. ¹¹ Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.”

This is Paul again, in a letter written to the church in Colossae. Here he is commanding them to put to death (to remove) anything in their lives that belongs to their earthly nature. If it was connected to the sin nature they had before coming to Christ, it needed to go. It is quite a list, right? I remember last night we talked a little bit about the filthy language part. I wonder what that means for you? At the the end of the quoted passage, Paul lists some of the things that would have, before Christ, separated or divided the people from each other. Jews would not have associated with Gentiles (Jews were circumcised, Gentiles were generally not). Barbarians were those people from what we now call Europe, and they were seriously looked down upon. Scythians were from the slavic areas, and also considered to be outsiders. Slaves were not usually permitted to associate with free peoples. So then, these are the dividing lines, and likely major ones in Colossae. In this passage, Paul is saying that in Christ, these dividing lines are no more. They are gone. They are removed. Rather than division, the church is to be completely unified in Christ.

Revelation 7:9-10 - “⁹ After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. ¹⁰ And they cried out in a loud voice:

‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’”

And this is a look at where we are going. Revelation is a glimpse at what the end times will hold. In the vision, John (the author) sees this great multitude "from every nation, tribe, people and language" worshipping God together. The church of God has spanned over two millennia now, and has covered pretty much every corner of the world at one point or another. There have been Christians from countless nations, tribes, peoples and languages already, and there will be more Christians yet.

God created mankind as one race - the human race - and we are all made in His image. What our culture defines as "race" - the different ethnic groups and nationalities - were originally created by God to divide us. And in Christ He has removed those dividing lines so that we can once again be unified. This means that in a Christian, biblical worldview, the color of our skin has no bearing on how we should treat each other. Jesus commanded that those who love Him must love one another, no matter how our culture might try to identify and divide us.

The racial discrimination that we see today can, unfortunately, be justified from an evolutionary perspective. If we really evolved from a single cell organism and are continuing to evolve, then its possible that the different "races" of humanity are at different stages of the evolutionary process, which would mean that some races really are better than others. HOWEVER, from a biblical perspective, the racial discrimination that we see today CANNOT be justified. According to the Bible we are all human beings, made in the image of God, equally lost in sin and equally in need of a Savior.

So, for those who are in Christ, it doesn't matter what color your skin is, what language you speak, or what country you're from - we are all one in Christ. We are unified by our faith in Jesus. So stop focusing on the things that make use different and start focusing on the One who brings us together in unity. Let us love one another as Jesus has loved us. And as we look out into the world, let us demonstrate God's love to others, regardless of how they might look or act different from us.

If you have questions or comments, I would be happy to discuss them with you in the comment section below. God bless you all.

Identity of Love

 Hey guys and gals! Welcome to another Summitable. Last night we played some real spicy UNO (we fixed the rules) and goodness, that's a LONG GAME. We ended up stopping it once one person went out rather than the usual "last one with cards loses". We all just wanted to go play 9-square. So we did! "Jumps McGee" just wanted to be in the air and didn't care if he hit the ball out, so he got out more than he should have. Ah well, as long as we all had fun, right?

The message last night was a break from our current "Devoted To..." series, as Sister Spatz brought a message on biblical friendships. As someone who has struggled with having healthy, biblical friendships since early childhood, she offered a great deal of insight to the issue as well as some practical advice for all of us on how to establish more biblical friendships and relationships with others.

As usual, she opened with some definitions.

Friendship: a relationship of mutual affection between people.

Relationship: the way in which two or more people or groups regard and behave toward each other.

So we can see just from these definitions that a friendship is a type of relationship, and that relationships cover a broad range of interactions (good ones and bad ones) with people.

Christianity aside, we can probably all agree that relationships are hard. Think about your interactions with the people in your life: friends, family members, co-workers, classmates, teachers, etc. Isn't it hard sometimes to know how to act, what to say, or what to do in these relationships? Sometimes we make it hard, other times they make it hard.

For Christians, relationships are even harder. If you are not a Christian, and you don't get along with someone, the culture says to cut them out of your life (think about how our culture talks about toxic people). Christians, however, are called to love our enemies.

Matthew 5:43-45 - "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."

Luke 6:27-36 - “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold it from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. [...] But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” 

We are commanded by our LORD and Savior to LOVE our enemies. Which is entirely counter-cultural. Normally, we hate our enemies and it is easy to do so because, you know, we hate them. Loving someone else, anyone else, is difficult. Especially when they are hostile, mean, or talk down to us. Our gut reaction is to strike back, to defend ourselves, to hit them where it hurts. But, as Christians, we're called to think beyond that. We are called to view them as God views them, His beloved creatures.

Now, this message is not centered on loving true enemies (like a burglar trying to kill us or something like that). No, this message is focused on dealing with those people who call themselves our friend, all the while tearing us down with their words, attitudes, and actions. Those "friends" we may have known since childhood but we recognize they are not good friends and they tend to tear us down instead of building us up. How do we obey God's command to love those who call themselves our friend yet choose to hurt us? The answer is twofold.

First, we need to understand and embrace our identity in God. After all, who are we in Christ?

Galatians 3:26 - "So in Christ Jesus, you are all children of God through faith." Through faith in Jesus, we are part of God's family.

Genesis 1:27 - "So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them." We are made in the image of God.

Colossians 3:12 - "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience." God has chosen us as part of His family, He has set us apart as holy, and He loves us dearly.

Psalm 139:1-16 - “You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue,  you, LORD, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light as you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one them came to be." God knew us before we were even born, and He knows us even better and more intimately than we know ourselves. He knows us to our very core, and still He loves us.

John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." God's love for us is so great He was willing to die for us - and He did, so that everyone who believes in Jesus could have life everlasting.

Matthew 10:29-31 - “Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear; therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows.” God places a very high value on us, and I said earlier, He knows us more than we even know ourselves. Not one person is worthless or unknown.

In Christ, we are children of God, loved completely, known intimately, valued and worth dying for.

The second part of obeying God's command to love our enemies is to actually stand on the foundation of our identity in Christ. This means placing a higher value on what God thinks of us than what anyone else thinks of us, including those close to us. Then, as we think about how God views us, we can also think about how God views others. John 3:16 informs us that God so loved the world that He died to save people. He loves and cares for everyone, even our enemies or our bad friends. He values them, too. And when we are confident in our identity in Christ, it allows us to see others the way God sees them, which makes it far easier to love them - because God loves them.

Now, as we begin to embrace our identity of love, we will still have struggles in our relationships with others because we aren't perfect people. We mess up, get frustrated, and lash out. So what can we do to help prevent this?

We set up boundaries. A good illustration for this is the circle of influence.

In the above illustration, you have yourself (and hopefully God) in the very center circle - that is you and your own control in your life. Then, within the next circle you have your close friends and family. The people you go to for advice and look to as an example. Then, outside of that you have your general friends and acquaintances, the people you know and interact with but don't usually go to for advice or look to as an example to follow. And then outside of all the circles is the rest of the world.

Usually, our problem is that we don't have these distinctions. There is only one circle - and everyone is in it, influencing us one way or another. Good friends and bad friends alike are given the power to influence us, and this will take a toll on our ability to stand in our identity in Christ and love others. There are just too many voices pulling us in too many directions. So, we need boundaries. Think through the people in your life. Who belongs in that very center circle? Who do you want in the inner circle, influencing you? Who needs to be distanced from you in the outer circle? And who needs to be removed completely?

It is important to remember that boundaries are not instinctual. We don't naturally just come up with healthy boundaries in the moment. Healthy boundaries in our relationships with others need to be made in advance. For example (this is Michael speaking), I know that the people in my alliance (in a mobile game I play) are not going to be a good influence on me, so I set the boundary for myself that I will not be influenced by them. I won't go to them for advice (unless it is game advice) or counsel. They aren't going to change my mind about something outside the game. My wife, on the other hand, is in my inner circle. She can influence me, she can change my mind, and I will go to her for advice (though not for the game, she doesn't play). We all need to make these distinctions with the people in our lives. Identify the trustworthy friends you can rely on to guide you through life, and let them into your inner circle. Identify the bad friends who will get you into trouble, and move them to the outer circle. This doesn't mean you stop being their friend, but it means you stop allowing them to have power over your decisions and life direction.

So, how does all of this (identity in Christ, loving our enemies, and setting boundaries) relate?

As Christians, we are called to love everyone we come across. This requires us to see them as God sees them. Loving someone doesn't mean letting them do whatever they want to do to us. Using the identity you have in Christ, set your boundaries of how you want to be treated, then defend those boundaries when someone crosses them. If a friend repeatedly throws your lunchbox in the trash after you have asked them to not do that, then it is time to step away from that "friend". This doesn't require violence, angry words, or spreading rumors, it just means moving them to your outer circle. Also, think about your part in the friendship. Are you showing them the same love, kindness, and appreciation that you want them to show you? Regardless if they treat you right, your part in "loving those who persecute you" is to treat others the way God wants them to be treated - with love.

This is a lot to think about. As you think about these things, go back and reread the verses above. Memorize them. Know them. Rely on them. In fact, go into the Bible and find more - there are so many verses talking about how much God loves and cares for us. Read them and know who you are to God. You are loved.

Then, think through your relationships. What boundaries need to be set? Who needs to be moved to a different circle? Perhaps more importantly, what circles need to be established?

And finally, in all of this, in every situation, pray. Talk to God. He loves you and He is listening, so as you struggle to know who you are, who He is, and how to love others, talk to Him about it.