You are already new: Letting go of negative labels

When Jesus walked on earth, the people he met walked away changed. Many were healed of things that had plagued them their whole lives.

Have you ever thought about how different things must have been for them after that?

Those who previously had been known by their maladies could now leave old labels behind. In fact, they had to! The “blind man of Bethsaida” certainly couldn’t hold onto his old name anymore. He was now the guy who could see. The person crippled from birth had become a walking miracle. The unclean, the untouchable, the sinner? They were now chosen, forgiven, and clean.

Maybe you’ve collected some negative labels of your own over the years? All of us have fallen short in various ways, and some of us have experienced trauma not of our own choosing. It can be tempting to allow these things to tell us who we are, but names that keep us stuck and discouraged are not from God.

Our enemy is an accuser who would love to steal our joy and hinder our effectiveness for the kingdom. If he can just convince us to adopt his accusations as permanent labels, we will begin to believe we are disqualified from walking in the freedom and victory that is ours in Christ. Instead of running the race with joy, we’ll sit on the bench, isolated, ineffective, and discouraged. This is not what God intends for his children.

The Bible is full of imperfect people who could have embraced their failures as identity but instead chose to walk forward with hope, trusting in the God who makes things new.

Consider Jacob, who spent years deceiving others in an effort to control his own circumstances rather than entrusting his future to God. When he encountered God, Jacob received a new identity as someone who wrestles with God instead of apart from Him.

Peter, too, could have succumbed to despair over his cowardice and chosen to wear the label of betrayer. Instead, he embraced who Jesus declared him to be—a rock and a shepherd who would feed and lead many others to Jesus.

These imperfect men of faith believed what God said about them, in spite of the evidence to the contrary. They believed God’s grace was bigger than their weaknesses, and that this grace was theirs for the taking.

Your weaknesses are not insurmountable to God, and they don’t get to dictate your identity. The God who gave you life—and redeemed it—is the One who gets to declare who you really are. God looks at us not according to our failures but according to who we are becoming as we allow Him to work in our lives. The names He speaks over His children are always life-giving.

This promise of renewal is for you, and it’s not just a future hope. God’s power to bring about transformation in your life is so sure that He already declares it to be so-you are a new creation.

Scripture for meditation

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Cor. 5:17, NIV)

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Rom. 8:1, NIV)

Prompts for reflection and journaling

What old labels have you been wearing as an identity?

What hope-filled words might God be declaring over you instead?

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