For the first few years I was walking with Christ, my life was stained with moralism and self-righteousness. When I was eighteen, a girl in my sorority shared the gospel with me, and I started to understand what it meant to give Jesus full Lordship of my life.
I had accepted Christ as a little girl, but most of my life I lived a double life. To some I was the perfect, Christian, straight-A, star student. And to others, I was the life of the party, easily swayed by influences around me. So, when my friend shared the gospel with me in college, it felt like my eyes were being opened to a new way of life.
I quickly got involved in a campus ministry where I learned a lot about abiding with Jesus. The party life I had been secretly living was radically transformed overnight. My desires changed, and I fully wanted to be all in with Jesus. Let me stop here and say, “Praise God!” It is only because of His grace that I am still abiding with Him today.
But I want to give you a peek behind the curtain. Those first few years of walking with Jesus in college were awesome, but I was still hiding. The performance and perfectionism I wrestled with my whole life manifested in a new way.
I still wanted to be seen as the “good Christian girl.” I was motivated by leadership roles in my campus ministry, how many girls I could share the gospel with and lead to Christ, and being seen as the wise friend who knew all the answers. At the heart of it, I was deeply struggling with pride.
I was praised for my gifts, maturity, and leadership. This meant I didn’t uncover what was truly going on in my heart until years down the road.
Finding My Identity in Other Things
Our passage today is talking about living a new life in Jesus rather than self-made religion. One issue with this is that it promotes confidence in self rather than in Christ. Looking back at those first few years I was walking with Jesus, I was doing a lot of self-promoting. I wanted to be noticed for my gifts and promoted for my uprightness. Although my identity was positionally secure in Christ, my heart was still trying to find identity in other things.
When I was 24, I moved to a new city to do a residency program at a church. I left a job in ministry, the girls I had shared the gospel with and discipled, and the spiritual life I had created for myself. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this move was another example of God’s grace in my life. He loved me too much to let me stay in my pride.
In this new city and new church, nobody knew me. Sure, I had been accepted into the residency program and had fellow students alongside me. But nobody knew me. And better yet, nobody wanted me to perform for them.
For several months, my role in this program was to sit and study God’s Word, watch and listen in ministry meetings, and be cared for by others in ministry. Within a couple weeks of starting the program, I felt like I was doing something wrong. I felt like I wasn’t doing enough. Nobody was asking me to stack chairs after a large event. Nobody was asking me to disciple a group of young women. Nobody was asking me to execute admin tasks. And my identity was shaken.
While those things can be good in their nature, I had been looking to them for a sense of fulfillment, rather than looking to Christ. I thought that God needed me to do ministry for Him.
Resting My Identity in Christ
One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned in my life I learned that year. Because I have new life in Christ, I am free to live as God’s daughter. He delights in me. He cherishes me. And sometimes, we get to partner in doing ministry with Him. That year, I started to believe that my identity was secure in Christ alone. No more striving. No more achieving. No more performing. Christ’s work on the cross declared me righteous in Him.
If you can imagine, there’s been a lot of relearning in my walk with God since He revealed that lesson to me. I’ve learned that godliness is a reflection of a humble heart, not looking “sinless” from the outside. I’ve learned that I still struggle with sins, and I always will on this side of eternity (Romans 7). I’ve learned that perfection is not the goal, but Christlikeness is. And guess what? I am still learning.
I no longer put a timestamp on how long I have to grow in a certain area or achieve a certain goal. God is the one who sanctifies our hearts. Just like we learned from our passage today, if we are seated with Christ, let us set our mind on things above. I’m confident that as we look to Jesus as our Perfecter, our hearts will be fully transformed to look more like Him.
If you feel like you are wrestling with performance or perfectionism in Christianity today, you’re not alone. I would encourage you to take a first step by admitting where your heart’s at before the Lord. Share with a trusted friend who’s a believer. Consider finding a Christ-centered recovery ministry near you. You are more loved than you will ever know by a God who thought of you before the beginning of time.
