When I was younger I would make use of my summer to work for my dad by doing some errands for him (or I think it was my dad making use of my summer). One time, he had tasked me with doing a few bank errands for him. I went to the bank and waited in line for almost half an hour.
When I got to the counter, the bank teller gave a short snicker and told me that I should have just went straight to the counter because my dad had a preferred status in the bank which means no queues and no lining up. I felt like an idiot.
Sometimes that's exactly what it feels like when we go through a whole ordeal only to find that things could have been a lot easier had it been clear from the beginning what our status was. Whether it's waiting in a queue at a bank or finding out pursuing your purpose, our identity is always the first step. When we know who we are, we will know what we are to do and how to do it.
But who are we truly and how do we know what our highest stature is and where it is found? God makes it very clear for us what our status is in this world. 1 John 3:1 says, "Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is."
The key phrase in that scripture is "we shall be like him." Can we really be like God? Well, technically no because we have all fallen short of His glory (Romans 3:23), but God has found another way for us to be "like Him" in another sense. Where we fail to compute and add up to be like Christ, God imputes and adds to us the status of children not by our works and faithfulness but by His works and faithfulness.
Looking back at that epiphany with my bank transaction gone wrong, it was not my identity that would have earned me a higher status but my dad's identity imputed on me. In the same way, that's how Jesus' identity is imputed on us. Because our sins are removed we can now commune with God who then commissions us to go. When He commissions us, we go with His authority. Just as Jesus promised in Matthew 28:20 after commissioning the disciples: "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
As we go for God, He goes with us, but we will never truly know that without first knowing our status in Christ as children, citizens and thus now workers for God's kingdom.
