Called to Your True Identity and True Self-1 Corinthians 15:10
“…by the grace of God I am who I am, and his grace to me was not without effect…” (1 Corinthians 15:10). “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live but Christ lives in me. The life I live I live by faith…” (Galatians 2:20).
What is your true self? Your true identity? How would you describe it?
How has your identity been influenced, motivated, shaped indoctrinated and cathechesized by external forces? Your peers? Your culture? Your church culture? Your desires? Your idols? Give examples.
Are you willing to pay the high cost–often painful–to find your true self and your true identity?
Broadly speaking my identify has evolved in the following ways:
I. A good, obedient, hard-working son. [1954-1980: the first 25 years of my life]
When I was growing up I sensed the following: I should be a good obedient son. (I was not.) I should study hard. (I didn’t.) I should be cultured and learn from the expensive piano lessons my parents paid for weekly for a decade. (I can’t play the piano today.) As a Chinese I should learn how to speak Mandarin from my private Chinese language teacher–which my parents also paid for–weekly for a decade. (I can’t speak Mandarin today.) My parents intended well for me to shape my identity as a good, obedient, hard-working son, who is cultured and multi-faceted. But I was a mischievous, disobedient son who studied minimally just to get by and neither learned how to play the piano nor speak Mandarin. It was because I’m a rebel and a non-conformist.
II. A good obedient UBF man. [1980-2005: the next 25 years of my life]
When I became a Christian in 1980, the culture of my church in Chicago UBF shaped my identity. Positively, the church influenced me to see and value the reading and serious study of Scripture as my singular most important pursuit throughout my life, which I have maintained to this very day and for which I am eternally grateful. But there was also a culture of obeying your leaders and seniors in the church without questioning or objecting, because it was implicitely communicated that obeying your church leader is equivalent to obeying God. In addition I wholeheartedly supported several non-negotiable practices: never ever missing church on Sunday, never ever leaving UBF for another church, always writing Bible testimonies every single week without fail, going “fishing” regularly, being a 1:1 Bible teacher, giving a tithe, etc. If I did this faithfully and without complaints I’m a good Christian, i.e. a good UBF man. But if I didn’t I was shamed, judged, criticized, gossiped about and regarded as an unfaithful Christian and an untrustworthy person. I wholeheartedly bought into such a shame culture without question for over 2 decades until my mentor, Samuel Lee, the founder of UBF, died in 2002.
III. Neither good nor obedient but alive by grace alone. [2005 onwards: the past dozen years+ of my life]
This was a very tough, difficult and painful journey that lasted for over a dozen years and is still ongoing. It was painful and difficult because some older church leaders could not understand why I sought to live my Christian life in a way that was radically different under my mentor Samuel Lee for over two decades. Needless to say, it was not well received by older members in the church. They regarded my quest as an act of childishness, immaturity, disrespect, rebellion and insubordination that was unacceptable. But as painful as my journey was, it was well worth the agony of my soul and the shaming and disapproval of some of my peers and elders. For through this painstaking and protracted ordeal, God helped me to find freedom and liberation to be my true self and find my true identity in Christ alone–apart from the church culture that indoctrinated me for the first 2-3 decades of my Christian life. This is by no means a completed journey, but an ongoing adventure that I pray may draw me closer to Christ by God’s mercy and grace alone.
