The manufacturer of a product knows the purpose of the product and has written the manual for the consumer to also understand its purpose and various functions. Some people are patient to read the full manual before usage, but many hardly read the manual in its entirety.
God our creator knows our purpose and everything that we need to excel in life is in the Bible. The word of God helps us to define our identity.
Identity is unchanging and eternal while status is attained and temporal. Like God, our spirits are eternal and in light of eternity, it is important to note that there will be no marriage in heaven (Matthew 22:30). With this in mind, we must be careful to refrain from defining ourselves through our marital status here on earth.
Before the broken engagement, before losing a spouse or divorce … God destined, blessed, and loved us as His daughters and sons with an unconditional love. Our relationship status doesn’t change when someone leaves or fails to enter into our lives. If we have forgotten, now is time a perfect time to remind ourselves of who we are in Christ. Let’s look at these points to help us remember our identity in Christ:
1. God loves us unconditionally.
True love is a person and this person is God. I John 4:16: “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” We must believe that we already have His love.
Only God can fulfill our deepest needs and He died to make us free and whole in every area of our lives.
1 John 4:10 tells us, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” We cannot do anything to earn such love. Love is a gift of grace. We have the identity of love.
We must not condemn ourselves because of rejection or death of a loved one but rather, we must start loving ourselves just as God loves us.
A great way to rekindle love and appreciation for ourselves is to write love verses and post it on our laptops, room walls, kitchen lockers, and even our fridge doors. Speaking love verses and songs loud in front of the mirror daily to combat opposite thoughts helps us place our mind on things that are higher like the Word of God. When we begin to fill our lives with the Word of God through reading and watching sermons, spending time with God, and by meditating on His love, we become more spiritually vibrant. Focusing on Christ will help us remember our true identity in Christ with or without a partner.
2. You are destined for a purpose.
We were predestined and ordained before our mother’s womb. Surprise! We are not an accident. God knows everything about us.
Like David said in Psalm 139:16, “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Oh yes! This is exactly who we are.
God said in Genesis 1:26 “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…”
This reflects His desire and design to imprint His nature on us and everyone possesses these attributes. The Bible contains God’s promises towards us, but we need to believe that we have His identity from DNA. We must hold fast in knowing that He has a specific purpose for us. Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Believing is possessing a strong conviction that there is a defined purpose for our lives. We will be accountable to God on how we accomplish His purposes for our lives in singleness or in marriage. Our core identity is attached to God and not on the temporal earthly status of marriage.
Jesus and Paul did not marry, yet they fulfilled their purposes. Jesus completed his purpose when he said in John 19:30 “…It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 4:7, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”
Whether you recognize it or not, you are loved by God and He has a prosperous future for you. Choose in this season of grief and hurt to remain true to God by loving God, loving yourself, focusing on your purpose and even loving people who have hurt you. Love them by praying for them. Luke 6:27 commands us to “bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”
The human mind is forgetful sometimes, but God gave us all a retrospective mind. We should invest time in reminding ourselves consistently about God’s love for us and how purposeful we are. God never created anything worthless. We will always be valuable to God.
Christ’s definition of our identity exceeds any earthly relationship we can ever cultivate. We can be single and peaceful. We can be single and whole. We are complete in Christ. Remember that marriage is not an identity, but rather a characteristic of our whole being. While marriage is an institution that can help us fulfill your purposes in God, we can also fulfill our purposes for God in and through our singleness.
The manufacturer of a product knows the purpose of the product and has written the manual for the consumer to also understand its purpose and various functions. Some people are patient to read the full manual before usage, but many hardly read the manual in its entirety.
