Hearts On Fire

Ephesians 2:1-10

We are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. (Ephesians 2:10)

“BE WHO GOD MEANT YOU to be and you will set the world on fire.” Those words, in one variation or another, are said to come from Catherine of Siena, a fourteenth-century visionary known for challenging a complacent and conflicted church. The thought is comforting to us because it does not suggest that we must behave like someone else, serve someone else’s agenda, or adopt someone else’s talents and gifts in order to do what we were called to do. It is challenging to us because it suggests that we were designed for the kind of influence we may not have yet. It strikes a balance between who we are now and who we were designed to be.

You will live much of your life in that tension. You are created for no other reason than to be who you were originally intended to be. The true you, the person deep inside who has not been distorted by your own sins or the sins of others, has been redeemed and is now being restored. While many people adopt false identities to cope with their fallenness, you can rest in your Father’s purposes. You are not called to any image other than that of Christ as he is being formed in you. Neither are you to embrace your fallenness by making your flaws and mistakes part of your identity, as so many have done. Scripture never urges us to accept the fact that we were born this way; it compels us to grow into a new identity we were reborn to live. We are in search of our true selves, which can only be found in Christ, as he is leading us, today and every day.

Do that, and you will set the world—or at least your corner of it—on fire. The world is in great need of people who know who they truly are and live that identity to the full. Be one of them today.

{Lord, set my heart—my true self—on fire with the power of your truth and love, and may that flame spread far beyond me. In every way, let me be all you meant for me to be. Amen.