Not My Fathers Son

Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?  For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.
1 Corinthians 6: 19-20 NKJV

I think that one of the greatest struggles a man has is seeking who he is.  We have this thing called identity, where we seek to understand who we really are.  Don't get me wrong, this isn't just a mens issue, but a human issue.  As I was growing up, one of the things I continualy told myself was that I WAS NOT like my father.  See, my parents had been divorced when I was still young.  However, I wasn't too young enough to understand that it was my dads indescretions that led in a large part to the divorce.  So, for quite some time the ghosts of my dads own bad behaviors was something I was bent on overcoming.  I NEVER wanted to be the man my father had become.  This was the identity that I associated with myself, as  my fathers youngest boy, and I fought like hell to overcome this.  My own identity was mistakenly based on my fathers own bad choices.  In the parlance of the day, this is how we roll.  Our own identity is usually tied directly or indirectly straight back to our own family origins.  It's no wonder, then, that my early view of God was not one of a loving father, but of a father who exhibited the same characteristics of my own dad.
In 1 Corinthians 6: 19-20, Paul gives us a deeper look into this issue.  Make no mistake, I'm sure that people of Pauls day struggled with the very same identity issues that we do.  Usually, children in Pauls day were more linked to their parents than we are today.  It wasn't uncommon for children to take on the same labors and careers that their parents labored in.  But, was this their real identity?  Is this our real identity?  Jesus paid the price for our sin, that's a given.  However, along with paying that price something else took place.  Somewhere along the line, Jesus makes his home in us.  The price that was paid for my sins was paid by God who sent his son to die for me.  That body, which died with Jesus on that cross, now belongs to God.  Sin no longer defines us, God has wiped that slate clean at the cross!  What defines us now is Jesus Christ who resides in us.  The ghosts of my dads bad behavior that I ran from for all of those years were never a part of who I really was in Jesus.  I'm not my fathers son.

~Scott~