Finding Our Identity In Christ - Ephesians 2:19

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God . . . - Ephesians 2:19

    The current political trend is for people of various persuasions in America to identify themselves as members of a particular group, ergo we often see the term in the news and on the internet, ‘identity group’ in relation to ‘identity politics’. The group itself can range anywhere from climate-change warriors to racial pride entities to non-binary cliques to wealth redistribution associations. In fact, the variety of such diverse factions creates quite an antagonistic environment politically, socially, and culturally. It seems that there is always one identity group pitted against its opposite. And we shake our heads, wondering why we just can’t all get along. Apparently, we have forgotten -"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” - Genesis 1:27. We are all, men, and women, rich, poor, Black, White, Asian, and every other race, and ethnicity, created in God’s image.
    People today spend far too much of their time arguing and disputing over worldly issues that no child of God should ever entertain. We seem to be at odds with one another again, in spite of Christ’s own admonition to us. “Jesus answered, ‘The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” - Mark 12:29-31. Clearly, most of us are not doing this! For instance, when we seek to circumvent or ‘step around’ God’s designs by delving into sexual ambiguity or outright opposition to His plan for mankind, both in terms of sexual behavior and in terms of defined gender, we are committing a direct transgression against God. We are insolently telling Him, “No, we will not accept your disposition for our lives. We know better than you do!”
     On the other hand, when we are pitting ourselves against one another, trying to gain an advantage, and take more of God’s providence than we are blessed with, we are not loving our neighbors as ourselves. I can reasonably assure you that should one group attain supremacy over all the others, it would not be long before there would be a schism within that group, where brother would be fighting against brother. This is the ultimate conclusion to human identity politics; there is no reconciliation among godless men and there never will be. Sinful man, by his very nature, will never know peace through legislation, coercion, intimidation, threats, or terror.
    So I challenge you to think of a world where every man and woman finds their identity in Christ Jesus. In this ‘best of all possible worlds,’ we would find agreement through forgiveness - “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” - Ephesians 4:31-32.   
    There is only one way we could ever hope for such a world, rid of prejudice and hatred, and that is through our identification in Jesus. “. . . for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” - Galatians 3:26-28. Our true ‘identity’ is in Christ the Lord and nowhere else! If we refuse to identify with Jesus, we are revealing our collaboration with the devil.
    What would it take for men and women to become part of this identity in Christ? We must acknowledge the truth in our minds before the truth can pierce our hearts. “Do not be conformed to this world, but, be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”- Romans 12:2. The Apostle tells us not to be conformed to the ways of this world and that we are to be changed to know what is good,  not according to our will but to the will of God.
“But that is not the way you learned Christ!—  assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.” - Ephesians 4:20-25.
    We must all begin to abandon ‘identity politics’ and the divisiveness it insists upon and start identifying with Jesus Christ, the only true source of the brotherhood of man.