"Remember Who You Are"

“Remember who you are,” my dad told my older sister as she was getting ready to stretch her wings into adulthood.

To my little-girl ears, it made no sense. How could someone forget who they are? Do they forget their name? Where they live? I asked my dad to explain, but I didn't understand until I was the one venturing into adulthood.

Finally, it clicked. My dad, a man of few words, was telling us to remember what he and our mom had taught us. He was telling us to remember that we represented the family. He was telling us to make him proud by being a good example of a Christ-follower. (I Timothy 4:12)

I am my father’s daughter. As a child, I knew he would always provide for my needs. I didn’t have to sit outside because I knew I had the right to eat dinner at his table. I didn’t have to live as an orphan because I had a father who loved me. If I needed something, I just had to ask. Even today, he is there when I need him.

Our Heavenly Father also tells us, “Remember who you are.”

We have been adopted into God’s family through faith in Jesus, but we sit shivering outside in the cold because we have forgotten who we are!! We suffer needlessly because we do not ask our Father, the King, to help us. Of course, we don’t deserve His help. None of us do. He longs to help us because He chose to love us. He is just waiting for us to ask.

Let’s remind ourselves who we are in Christ…

1.       We are children of God!

“But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.”-- John 1:12 NLT

2.       We have the right to call him “Father”.

“And because you Gentiles have become his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, and now you can call God your dear Father.” Galatians 4:6 NLT

3.       We are loved beyond comprehension.

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” 1 John 3:1a NIV

This is where most Christians stop. It is where I have stopped for most of my life. Don’t children of royalty have privileges and responsibilities that go along with their position? If we are so loved, what does it mean to us? I’ll let Jesus say it for Himself…

“I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done,

and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father.

You can ask for anything in my name and I will do it, 

so that the Son can bring glory to the Father.

Yes, ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”

John 14:12-14 NLT (emphasis added)

Read that passage again. Let it sink in.

What did Jesus do while He was here on earth? Didn’t He heal people? Didn’t He raise the dead? Did He just say He would enable us to do greater things than those? Am I living far below my position because I don’t even think to ask God for these things? Am I claiming this promise or living as a pauper?

I’m still processing the meaning of these verses and what they should look like in my life. I don’t want to live like an orphan anymore. I want more of the Heavenly Father. I want to know what it REALLY means to be a child of the King.

The Father is gently whispering…

“Remember who you are.”



--Carol