Making Sense Of God - Timothy KellerSample

“Your True Identity”

Some years ago there were two young men attending my church, exploring Christianity and also trying to make it in acting. I’ll call them Sam and Jim. Sam was moving toward faith in Christ while Jim was moving away. As Jesus became more real to Sam, he stopped looking to his stage career as the measure of his worth. Then Sam and Jim found themselves auditioning for the same role. It was a very big part in a very big production. If either of them had gotten the job, it would have propelled him to great heights.

So they performed at the audition, but neither of them was chosen. They both were turned down. Jim, the one whom most people would have considered the more self-confident, was simply devastated, while Sam was just disappointed. Sam went out and got a job in business, and after that he kept one foot in acting.

Over the years he became very active in the church and was reasonably successful in business. Opportunities for stage or screen acting occurred occasionally, but he engaged in them only as an avocation. His life thrived. Jim, however, went into a tailspin. He was angry at himself and the industry and left acting altogether, but he hated any other job he took. He seldom remained in a job for more than a year, drifting from place to place.

What happened? Originally, both men had acting as the core of their identity. It was the main factor in their self-regard. But then Sam had an identity shift. Acting became a good thing but not an ultimate thing.

His love of the stage was not evicted from his life, but its stranglehold on his self-image and worth was broken. It became part of who he was but not the essence of who he was. That’s why the rejection of not getting the role could not get at his identity. It was safe, impervious, hidden in Jesus Christ (Colossians 3:1–3). Jim, however, had a highly vulnerable modern identity. His failure was an ax blow to his psychological tree. The rejection went right to the root of what made him feel he counted, what made him significant.

If you believe the Gospel and all its remarkable claims about Jesus and what he has done for you and who you are in him, then nothing that happens in this world can actually get at your identity. Imagine, for a moment, what it would be like to believe this. Consider what a sweeping difference it would make.

Excerpt from Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical by Timothy Keller

Reprinted by arrangement with Viking Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, A Penguin Random House Company. Copyright © 2016 by Timothy Keller