One of my favorite things to do is watch videos of furniture flips and home redesigns. I love a good before and after reveal. What is fascinating, however, is when they video the whole process and then present what might have taken many, many hours of hard work and compress it into a 3-minute video clip.

There’s something very satisfying in seeing what was old, beat-up, perhaps with broken parts or chipped edges be changed into something beautiful and functional. Without the vision and hard work of the artist, it would be cast aside, headed for the dump. Instead, the end result looks nothing like the original but is restored and given a new life.

We all love furniture and home restoration stories, but what’s even more amazing is the restoration story that God writes with our lives.

The original sin in the Garden wrecked God’s masterpiece. He breathed His very life into Adam and Eve, but sin destroyed the sweet fellowship between man and His Creator, and brought death.

But God.

God knew this would happen, and He already had a plan in place to perform the greatest restoration project that would ever be known. In Christ, our identity as God’s children is restored, re-made into something even more beautiful – the image of His Son, Jesus.

Ephesians 4:20-24 – But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

Ephesians 2:13 – But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

Ephesians 5:8 – For you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light.

1 Peter 2:10 – For you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

1 Peter 2:25 – For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.

Colossians 1:21-22 – And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.

What a wonderful gift – a new identity! We no longer bear the old “varnish” of our sin with its chips and broken places that scarred our souls and made us unusable and unwanted. Satan tempts, deceives, accuses, and then throws us to the side, thinking he’s destroyed us, but God picks us up, takes us into His heavenly workshop, and remakes us from the inside out. When He’s done with us, we’re not recognizable as our old selves. We have been given a new identity.

It reminds me of the witness protection program, where a person leaves behind everything that could tie him to the old life and takes on a completely new identity. A new name, a new look, a new profession and purpose, and a new location. We, too, are in “witness protection” … we’re protected by the blood of Jesus and under our Father’s care, and we are witnesses to the gospel that has transformed us.

Here’s a good way to learn about your new identity. Go to Biblegateway.com and do a search for “in Christ” (use the quotes so it just finds the phrase). You’ll be amazed at who you are!

Do you have a new identity?

Has God taken you to His workshop, stripped you of your old life, and created in you something so wonderful, so like His Son, that your old friends hardly recognize you?

2 Corinthians 3:18 – But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

If you know Jesus, you are not who you used to be, praise God!

If you’re still living in your old life, yet to believe and trust Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins and receive the salvation He purchased for you on the cross, my prayer is that you ask Him for a new identity today.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 – Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

Romans 8:29-30 – For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

I’m so grateful for the gift of my new identity in Christ. I pray that this Christmas, you have received that gift, too.