Walking in the New Identity
— By M.T. Clark — P-2023, 07/23/2026 — Today’s Audio Podcast
Today’s Message on YouTube:
Today’s photo of a small flock of Canadian geese crossing a two-lane country road beside the calm water of Mariaville Lake comes to us from yours truly, as I captured this scene while driving along Mariaville Road back on July 20th, 2020.
Well, it’s Thursday, I’m sharing this two-lane asphalt pathway photo as a reminder or an encouragement to get on, or to stay on, the path of Christian discipleship where things may try to get in your way as you follow the Lord, but you just keep moving forward, trusting that God will make a way through for you, somehow.
God gives us all we need for life and godliness when we put our faith in Jesus Christ, but we may have to learn how to walk before we run and learn how to run before we fly with the eagles of our faith. Speaking of learning how to walk…
Our series, “Freedom Stories,” continues today with how we walk in the new identity God has given.
Walking in the New Identity
Once we’ve seen who God says we are, a practical question follows: how do we actually live it out?
Paul answers that question directly in Colossians 3:1-3 (NKJV): “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
Notice that Paul doesn’t begin with a command to try harder. He begins with a fact, “if then you were raised with Christ,” and the whole instruction flows out of that already accomplished reality. Because you have already been raised with Christ, now seek and set your mind on the things that match who you are now.
The key phrase for daily freedom is “set your mind.” Walking in the Spirit and living from our new identity is largely a matter of where we continually set our attention, because the mind that is fixed on the earth, on the old appetites, old failures, and old vices, will drift back toward the old way of living almost by gravity.
I don’t want to go into too much depth on this point, but it is super important for maintaining your freedom. If you don’t separate yourself from the world in terms of your desires and affections, you will constantly struggle with the flesh. To be free by faith, we live by faith and see the world through the lens of our identity in Christ.
Instead of dwelling on the pleasures of the flesh and the ways of the world, Paul calls us instead to set our minds on things above, on Christ and on who we are in Him. This is not a single act but discipline, a daily turning of our attention away from what pulls us down and toward the truth that lifts us up. This is how our minds are renewed. This refocused attention towards the things of God is the practical engine of transformation. As the renewed mind goes, so the new life flows.
There is also a deep assurance of security within Paul’s exhortation as well, in the words “you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
This phrase always confused me. It just sounds so cryptic, but what I have come to understand about it is that our new identity is not something fragile that we have to protect by our own vigilance, as though one bad day could undo it.
Our new identity is hidden with Christ in God, kept safe in the most secure place in the universe, beyond the reach of the accuser and beyond the reach of our own failures. Our identity in Christ can’t be lost because God brought us as close to Him as we could possibly imagine. We are so close that we are hidden right there with Jesus, in God. And since this is our new identity and position now, super close and inseparable from God, we should live from it in thought, word, and deed.
So, we set our minds on things above not in order to keep our salvation intact, but because our life is already hidden there, and we are simply learning to live where we already belong.
For years I knew this truth on paper long before I knew how to walk in it. I think of my own move in 2020, after my divorce, into a house of my own, when I finally realized I didn’t have to live ashamed in a basement anymore, that my acceptance and significance and security were settled in who God said I was and He had set me free. God had led me out of the darkness of divorce that I had lived in for nearly two years.
Walking in our new identity feels exactly like that, like coming up out of a basement that we have no reason to live in any longer. Of course, in my walk, this settling into my new identity in Christ has been a continuing and progressive journey, and that’s why it is so important to set your mind on the things above and the life we now have in Christ. We have to grow as we go.
So, walk it out, brothers and sisters. You were raised with Christ; your life is hidden with Him in God, and the daily work of freedom is simply to keep setting your mind on that reality instead of the old one. You are not climbing toward an identity you hope to earn. You are living out of an identity you already have, one step at a time and one day at a time.
Keep on walking and talking with God.
— M.T.
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“The views, opinions, and commentary of this publication are those of the author, M.T. Clark, only, and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of any of the photographers, artists, ministries, or other authors of the other works that may be included in this publication, and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities the author may represent.”
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