INTRODUCTION

Who are you? 

Your instinctive response reflects your perceived identity. Common answers relate to our jobs, our roles at home, or our positions in church. Some of us might even give ‘model answers’ like ‘I am a child of God’, but is this the reality you are living? We can only act out of who we are, not who we pretend to be. 

Identity founded on external achievements or subjective internal feelings is unreliable. It is no wonder we experience one identity crisis after another. Do we really know who we are? 

Our Identity is received, not achieved or created.

DISCUSSION

1. Who are you? Describe yourself in 3 sentences or fewer. If it is too difficult or abstract to answer this question, consider what you take pride in.
   
   a. What do your answers reveal about where you place your self-worth?
   
   b. What are some labels or roles people commonly use to define themselves?
   
   
2. If you have never wrestled with questions about who you are and why you exist, this is an invitation to pause and reflect more deeply on your life and identity.
   
   Read Genesis 2:5-7, John 9:1 & 6-7, and John 20:19-23.
   
   a. Why do you think God chose to create man from dust? What does this teach us about our human weakness, dependence on God, and God’s power? See also Genesis 3:19.
   
   b. In both creation and resurrection, we see God’s breath being given. What is the significance of God’s breath? 
   
   • What did Adam receive when God breathed into him?
   
   • What did the disciples receive when Jesus breathed on them in John 20:22?
   
   c. Read John 3:1-21 (highlight John 3:3-5) when Jesus tells Nicodemus that a person must be born again. What does it mean to be born again or made new in Christ?
   
   
3. Reflect: 
   
   a. In what ways have you been trying to achieve your identity rather than receive it from God?
   
   b. Is there anything in your old way of thinking or living that God may be asking you to let go of? How can the group pray for you in this area?

WHAT WILL YOU DO

Our identity is not something we have to achieve, prove, or create for ourselves. In Christ, it is received. So let us come honestly to Jesus with our fears, failures, questions, and longings, and let us learn to accept what He says about us over what the world says. As we continue to abide in Him, may we keep receiving what we cannot earn: His love, peace, grace, and the assurance that we belong to Him. May this truth shape how we see ourselves and how we live each day as God’s resurrected people.

Let this be our prayer: 

“Lord Jesus, I receive again what I cannot earn: ________ (fill in the blank) and that I belong to you.” 

Example: “Lord Jesus, I receive again what I cannot earn: love and that I belong to you.”

MEMORY VERSE

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! – 2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV