Today Perry and Shawna welcome Kandi Zeller to the team with a conversation on finding our identity in Jesus.  Kandi is the editor of the teen devotional Unlocked. 

First what does it mean to have our identity in Christ.  It’s actually exchanging all our messiness and junk and sin and trading it for all Jesus’ beauty and perfection.  It’s letting ourselves be defined by Jesus’ great love for us and letting go of being defined by our sin. 

Next as we let ourselves be defined by Jesus’ love for us, we find we have a family of all those who are loved by Jesus.  Our divisions fall away when we realize that we have one thing in common—the blood of Jesus that has cleansed us from all our sin! 

Then Kandi shares about her struggles with anxiety, migraines and other chronic pain.  But because her identity is in the resurrected Jesus she’s not defined by her afflictions.  Because one day all these afflictions will be gone as she and all who believe in Jesus will be free from them in our own resurrected, perfect, pain-free bodies!

Next, we find that being secure in Jesus love for us frees us to love people whose lives are really messed up and full of sin.  We get to love them and be a bridge for them into God’s family by loving as we have been loved! 

Finally, in Jesus, we will never be kicked out of God’s family when we mess up.  Kandi shares about how she used to beat herself up when she sinned.  She thought that’s what God wanted her to do.  Now she knows the joy of bringing her failures to a Father whose arms are always open wide.  Being rooted in Jesus’ love for us frees us to love as we have been loved!

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