Introduction
INTRODUCION
Who are you?
• The man sitting to my left at a dinner referred to himself as a carpenter. Carpentry is his vocation, but it is not who he is.
• A lady with a broken marriage said to a friend, “I am just a failure.” Although she had failed in her marriage, that is not who she is.
• I grew up in moderate poverty. To this day, my default answer to the question, “Who am I?”, is, “I am the little boy growing up on the dirt street alongside the railroad track.” But that is not who I am.
These three responses illustrate the common tendency to answer the question, “Who am I?”, in terms of some subjective experience. Many of us answer in terms of our vocation. Others focus on a particularly formative or emotional experience.
I serve with the Navigators collegiate ministry, primarily focusing on staff development. But I am familiar enough with the student scene to know that many young people arrive at college from difficult family backgrounds, or carrying the baggage of their own sinful lifestyles during their high school days. As a result, many of them have low or even negative self-images. Many, if honest, would answer the question, “Who am I?”, in terms of their negative or sinful experiences.
As Christians, however, our identity is to be found in our relationship with Christ, not in our subjective and often negative life experiences. In our ministry to students, therefore, we seek to help them become aware of their “position and identity in Christ,” so that their answer to the question, “Who am I?”, is based on what it means to be “in Christ.”
There is no short and simple answer to the question, “Who am I in Christ?” That position involves both privileges and responsibilities. It involves some tremendously astounding truths about us, but also faces us with some sobering facts that are just as true.
In this book we are going to look at eight different answers to the question, “Who am I?”, It is my prayer that these eight answers will give us a balanced, biblical view of what it means to be in Christ.