Who are you? You really have no idea if you’re not walking in right relationship with spiritual family. You don’t even have a clue because intimacy comes before identity.

Our identity is usually a collection of labels that we or those around us have placed on our lives. Some of them are well-meaning and some are blatantly malevolent, but nearly all of them are actually mislabels — they’re wrong! Even some of the ones we hold dear… If the label didn’t originally come from the One who designed us, it’s wrong, it doesn’t belong on us, it’s not who we are. And neither we nor anyone or anything around us has the power to rightly label us except for our Designer. I can slap whatever label I want on my life, but it doesn’t make it true unless it’s in my true design. This is why it’s so important to focus our lives not on what we do (influence) or who we are (identity) but first and foremost on knowing our Father and knowing the family into which we’ve been saved through faith in Jesus Christ. Our Father and our spiritual siblings cleanse us of our mislabels and reapply and reenforce our original labels.

Sunday, July 18th, we’re going to continue talking about “identity” by discussing our original role in creation as God’s partnered labelers. Join us as we look at at how this plays out from Genesis to today. Also, we’ll talk about how our freedom is so intricately connected to our identity.

Let’s grow together!
Matt

Matt Neese
Wellspring.Live

DAILY WORD FOR JULY 14, 2021

They earnestly sought after God, they found Him, and the Lord gave them rest. Faith begins with believing that God exists and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him, and a beautiful part of that reward is rest. We seek, we find, we rest.

“So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God. For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world.” — Hebrews 4:9-10 NLT

The writer of Hebrews calls this rest the “good news”, that from the foundation of creation the Lord has pronounced rest is available. And the entrance to this designed, perfect rest from our labors is faith. In faith we embrace the words of Christ that ring through time, connecting creation to crucifixion to present day and to eternity: “It is finished!”

In teaching the Greeks about God, Paul said, “God’s purpose was for the nations to seek after Him and perhaps feel their way toward Him and find Him — though He is not far from any one of us. For in Him we live and move and exist.” (Acts 17:27-28) God’s hope is that our desire to find rest will drive us into relationship with Him, the source of rest. Yet in our rebellion and rejection of our Creator and our Lord Jesus, we labor and we strive and we stress and we curse to attain that which has already been fully finished and freely provided: rest. Seek the Lord God and you will find the Lord God and He will give you rest.

• 7/14 Job 8, Psalm 45, II Chronicles 15, Acts 17:16-34
• 7/15 Job 9, Psalm 46, II Chronicles 16, Acts 18
• 7/16 Job 10, Psalm 47, II Chronicles 17, Acts 19:1-20
• 7/17 Job 11, Psalm 48, II Chronicles 18, Acts 19:21-41
• 7/18 Job 12, Psalm 49, II Chronicles 19, Acts 20:1-16
• 7/19 Job 13, Psalm 50, II Chronicles 20, Acts 20:17-38
• 7/20 Job 14, Psalm 51, II Chronicles 21, Acts 21:1-14
• 7/21 Job 15, Psalm 52, II Chronicles 22, Acts 21:15-40

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