Quick story: I once listened to a series of voice notes my friend sent to me describing one of the craziest road trips he’d had in a while in Lagos. He reached a point where he talked about how the driver of the bus had received two actual slaps in a bid to get the passengers in the bus to their bus stops. Now, that doesn’t really hit until you find out this driver’s name was Igbati.
In my language — Yoruba, igbati means slap, and you’ll see the reason for telling this story really soon.
A few months ago, I did a study on the book of John. Ah, John. The book of John is such an interesting book with a really intriguing beginning that talks about light, darkness, and the Word really being Jesus Christ. It uses symbolism — features of everyday life (like bread, water, sheep) to point out spiritual truths. I liked that. However, between the special attention I paid to the woman Jesus told to go and sin no more and the fact that John noted lesser miracles as opposed to the other gospels (and I suppose it was because he wanted give a thorough explanation of the person of Jesus), I paid attention to something else. The repeated use of the phrase when John was trying to refer to one particular person:
The disciple whom Jesus loved.
Who was “the disciple whom Jesus loved”? Why wasn’t there a name to this disciple? Why did John refer to the person as that? What was the reason for that repeated phrase? (look up John 13:23, John 19:26, John 20:2, John 21:7).
Well… well, that person was John himself. John was “the disciple whom Jesus loved”.
Can we try to imagine John living as a Gen Z real quick? Imagine poor John logging into Twitter to share what the Holy Spirit had revealed to him one morning after doing his daily devotional. 30 notifications and boom, he’s being dragged.
User 1: ‘The disciple Jesus loves’? It’s giving self-righteous and proud.
User 2: IMO, John should be cancelled.
User 3: Not these disciples of Jesus always thinking they’re the best.
But I don’t think it had anything with John having an ego or trying to flex on the others with this name he chose to call himself. I don’t think he was trying to be modest by not wanting to call attention to himself. I think he chose to refer to himself as “the disciple Jesus loved” because he had experienced the love of Jesus so greatly and he held unto that.
Let’s not forget that John (alongside his brother James) was nicknamed a “son of thunder” due to his hotheadedness (do you guys remember that one time James and John asked Jesus if he wanted them to call fire from Heaven to burn down the people of Samaria who rejected Jesus? Luke 9:51–56, there you go). But through Jesus’ love, John’s life was transformed, and he found his true purpose. Years after rolling with Jesus, he earned a new name. A new identity: John, the beloved of Christ. Now, because of John, we as disciples of Jesus, have the confidence that we are loved unconditionally by God. We are the beloved of Christ.
This is what I’m driving at.
What do you believe about yourself? What do you call yourself? Or equally relevant, what do you let others call you? Names are important. Identity is important.
Do you now see why I told that story in the beginning?
Ifeoluwanimi is my full name, and it means I am the love of God. I have never taken anything more personally, and I have experienced God’s love more than anything in my life. I have made it an identity which I strongly believe, and if anyone were to ask me who I am in Christ, apart from being His righteousness, I will say I am loved by Him (which we all are, by the way, but at this point it has become a reality for me, I say it without thinking twice).
You have to know who you are in Christ, and you have to believe it too.
Thing is, if you don’t remind yourself of who you are in Christ, someone else (namely the devil) will most likely give you an identity that is not yours. And since he’s the father of all lies and is great at being cunny, believe me when I say he will do a good job in giving you that identity and making you believe it is what you really are. But let’s tell him to take his lying, mischievous self back to where he came from because our real selves is found in what God really says we are. Our identity in Christ tells us we belong to Him, it tells us we are wanted, it gives us confidence, it reveals our deeper purpose. This is something we should sit with and think about daily. This is something we keep reminding ourselves of daily until it becomes our reality.
When I read this text from Colossians 3:4, I felt some kind of excitement:
Your real life is Christ and when he appears, then you too will appear with him and share his glory!
Good News Translation
My real life is Christ. In essence, Jesus is my life, and that is such a deep revelation when you see that it goes as far as saying that if anything has to get to me as I am, it has to go through Jesus first. This is my confidence. This is our confidence.
❀ ❀ ❀
