October 21, 2026
Identity
How do we present ourselves to the world? If we identify by our job, our reputation, our wealth or our position, we have a long way to go in understanding Christian life. We are a reflection of our God, created in His image. Nothing we can achieve in this world will ever have the prestige of who He created us to be. We should never cheapen our worth with worldly descriptions. In the same vein, when people are homeless, unemployed, or abandoned, all those negative verbs we shy away from, we don’t shout it out as who we are. People trapped in homelessness have enough trouble on their hands.
Technology has changed many cultural expectations. Jobs have changed. Entire occupations have disappeared. Students are looking at trade schools because they can be quicker and cheaper than four year degrees with their nearly mandatory student loans. Many people with great degrees are job searching every day.
This has caused people to view the government with questions and distrust. Technology changed how we earn money, how we design and invent, and how we expect this developing culture to settle back down. Transitions are never easy. Stay in the Word. Stay in peace. Right now our culture is experiencing an explosion of emotional immaturity. Ponder your every reaction in your heart, refusing to vent and become a part of the chaos of unmetered behavior!
Whether we are an Ivy League Dean, homeless, or the unemployed holder of a Master ‘s Degree, we are not what we do or where we are in life. We are children of God. We are who He says we are. Sin is sin. We know and recognize it. However, the caution is to hate the sin and love the sinner. Such a fine point of distinction. It is easy to love the lovable. When empathy and a reflection of God’s immense love causes us to love, empathize and tend to the needs of the unlovable we can begin to grasp the immeasurable love God has for us.
Love is the balm to our health and happiness. Hate is a poison that steals peace and joy and it rots our bodies from the inside out. Let everyone take note of your love and forgiveness. As we eat, sleep, take Communion and live our lives, let our legacy be a living example of the Jesus kind of grace.
Leadership is easier to find when we don’t seek it than when we do. God arranges many things for us in His Kingdom, using our past, our experience and even our wrong steps and actions to prepare us for our new position.
Lord God, Thank You for loving me so dearly. You call me complete, beautiful and forgiven. You threw my sins into the Sea of Forgetfulness the moment I surrendered my heart to you. I am Saved, beloved and my picture hangs on Your wall. May everything You have called me to do be accomplished and I pray I hear faithfully and obey swiftly.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega—the beginning and the end,” says the Lord God. “I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come—the Almighty One.” Revelation 1:8