IdentityNäide

Main Idea: We are Created. God is our Creator.

If you decided one day to go out, buy some clay and a pottery wheel, and make a ceramic bowl, no matter if you made a perfect work of art or an ugly monstrosity of a thing, who would be the owner of that bowl? It would be you, right? Well, the truth is that someone made the world, and that someone is God, and He, therefore, has ownership rights to everything in it. That includes us. We belong to Him.

This is not something that most people in our day want to be the case. The vast majority of people today want to imagine that they own themselves, and have a right to determine their own purpose and their own reason for existence. However, it is exactly this kind of thinking which has led to the identity crisis so many of us experience. And the only way out of it is to recognize that God is the Creator of all things, and He is the One who gets to determine the purpose for His creation.

Reflection Questions:

• In the example of the potter and the bowl, who has the right to decide the bowl’s purpose?
• Why do you think so many people want to believe they “own themselves” or can define their own purpose?
• How does it make you feel to know that you “belong” to God?
• How does knowing you were created on purpose by a loving Creator, shape the way you see your identity and worth?