What we place our value in, whether it’s the amount of money we have or don’t have, our accomplishments, or our failures, often signifies how we identify ourselves. So much of who we are is based on the identity we give ourselves or the one the world assigns to us. Identity is important, and have you ever stopped to ask yourself, “What identity have you given yourself and why?”
Even though we may call ourselves one thing, maybe lazy, selfish, arrogant, or even successful and ambitious, often God sees us and calls us something totally different. Names are paramount; they identify who we are, and God uses names to separate us from the World. So, who is giving you your identity? God or man?
When diving into this topic, so many moments in Scripture stood out to me regarding the importance of who a person identified as. Moses, to be specific.
Scripture says of Moses in Hebrews 11:24-27,
By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward. By faith, he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible.
Although Moses could have identified as a child of Pharaoh’s daughter, he counted that as a loss, preferring to identify with the sufferings of his people and as a child of God. Scripture says he even said to God, while in the blinding destitute wilderness they were in, that “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here” (Exodus 33:15). Moses valued God and God’s people, and that was His identity.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—introduced in Daniel 1—were Israelites who were taken to Babylon after Nebuchadnezzar conquered their nation. They were among the brightest and strongest young men chosen to serve in the king’s palace. The King renamed them, saying in Scripture that he gave “Daniel the name Belteshazzar; to Hananiah, Shadrach; to Mishael, Meshach; and to Azariah, Abed-Nego” (Daniel 1:7). These names were given to them to strip them of their identity of being tied to God, and instead used these names, which were tied to false gods.
Yet despite being renamed by the world, they never lost sight of who they truly were. When faced with the fiery furnace, they chose obedience to God over allegiance to Babylon. Their courage wasn’t rooted in the names the king gave them, but in the identity God had already spoken over them.
The significance is this: the world may try to rename you, redefine you, or claim you—but it cannot change who you are in God. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stood firm because they knew their true identity belonged to Him alone.
When God enters our lives, He doesn’t just want to be our focus—He wants to become our identity. When He calls us His own, He names us something entirely different from what the world has spoken over us, or even what we have spoken over ourselves. Scripture says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, and all things have become new.” God gives us a new identity that replaces every label we once carried.
He calls us “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people” (1 Peter 2:9). Even though we were once far from Him—alienated, lost, and even His enemies—He chose us to belong to Him. From the beginning, God created us in His image (Genesis 1:27), and though sin distorted that image, Christ’s work on the cross began the restoration. Now, through Him, we are being renewed and conformed into the image of Christ Himself (Romans 8:29).
This is the identity God gives: not the one shaped by our past, our failures, or the world’s opinions, but the one rooted in who He is and who He calls us to be. And when we believe that identity, everything about how we see ourselves—and how we live—begins to change.