I woke up this morning with the chorus of this song in my head: Good Good Father.

The lyrics to the chorus are:  You’re a good good Father, It’s who You are, it’s who You are, it’s who You are, And I’m loved by You, It’s who I am, it’s who I am, it’s who I am.

It has such a simple chorus, but it is an extremely powerful truth and proclamation.  It’s really easy to let our identity become wrapped up in what we do.  In fact, when we meet somebody for the first time we are normally trying to identify who they are by asking them what they do. “Oh, it’s really nice to meet you John, what do you do?”  “I’m the Senior Vice President for First National Bank.”  And from that point forward, that is normally how we think of John.  Somebody might ask us about him, “Who is that guy?”  “Oh, that’s John, he’s the Vice President of First National Bank.”  Job titles normally tell us about a persons status, and sometimes we want people to assume certain things about our status from the jobs we have.

Here’s the thing though, sometimes we screw up!  Sometimes we do poorly or we make bad choices and we lose our jobs, or we don’t do our jobs well.  Sometimes other people screw up and it impacts our business, our jobs, our livelihoods, etc.  If our identity is wrapped up in what we do, then when we do what we do badly or somebody else does it badly and it reflects on us and others see it, it will say something to them about our identity and even more importantly it will say something to our own hearts about who we are.

Even as Christians it’s very easy to get sucked into this.  We identify ourselves by the place we work, the title we have, the people/party we vote for, the church we attend, the worldview we adhere to, the sports team we cheer for, etc. etc..  What happens when any of these are challenged, or fail, or fall?  If our identity is wrapped up in what we do, then it’s very easy to lose part of who we are when those things aren’t true any more.

That’s why I love this song; it simplifies everything for us.  Our identity was intended to be rooted in who God is.  We were created in His image!  This means if we’d like to discover who we are, we must discover who He is.  And, when it comes right down to it, He is a good, good Father; It’s who He is!  And guess what?  We are loved by Him; It’s who we are!  I might fail, or make a poor decision, or get hurt by somebody, but none of that adds or subtracts from my identity if my identity is rooted in who He is.  He is the same always; yesterday, today and forever!  Nothing can separate me from His love!  He has already given me a new name and written it in the book of life!  When by grace through faith I believed, I was sealed and preserved.  That doesn’t mean life will be easy or that I won’t make mistakes, but it does mean that from that point forward my identity is rooted in Him.

So when life has you down and you start questioning your identity and asking yourself the question, “Who am I?”, start with who He is.  He’s a good good Father!  Wouldn’t it be great if when somebody inquired about who you were, you could be identified by the way God loves you?  “Oh him, that’s Caleb, He’s loved by a God that is a really great father!”  No matter what roles I’m fulfilling, or the circumstances surrounding my life, that would be a true statement that would drive my own identity and cause others to consider theirs.

It’s just as easy to do this with church and religion.  For example, when going to church becomes a habit or the thing that we do on Sunday, the church itself can lose its identity.  God designed it so that followers of Jesus would BE the church, not GO to church.  Now obviously we have to gather corporately to worship and encourage each other, but if we changed our perspective just slightly, it could bring a new level of corporate identity.  “How do you know John?”  “Oh, we go to the same church.”  This gives information about what John and I do, but not about who we are.  We ARE the church, the bride of Christ.  You would never tell somebody that you go to the bride of Christ every Sunday morning would you?  No!  But you are a member of the body of Christ, the bride of Christ!  We ARE the church.

If the church always operated from the standpoint of its identity being rooted in the identity of the Father, then it would be freed to minister to the least of these!  “What is Caleb doing hanging out with that drug addict?” “Why in the world are you hanging out with gay people?”  Because, we ARE the church!  We are the bride of Christ!  Jesus spent much of his time with “notorious sinners” instead of building up walls of protection to keep them out; we should be too!

He is a good, good Father; It’s who He is!

We are loved by Him; It’s who we are!

We ARE the church!

Who am I?  I’m just a guy who is loved by God; It’s who I am.