Gospel-Centered Mentoring Starts with Our Identity in Christ
#5 in the Gospel-Centered Mentoring Series
At this point, a reader might surmise that gospel-centered mentoring is like any other Christian mentoring approach. The only apparent difference is the extra emphasis on “resting in Christ fully.” But we will now briefly highlight seven principles that mark gospel-centered mentoring.
Gospel-Centered Mentoring:
Starts with our identity in Christ.
Centers on the means of grace.
Embraces the cross.
Patiently seeks true transformation.
Applies law and gospel properly.
Believes in Christ’s potential.
Appreciates the complexity of people.
Gospel-Centered Mentoring Starts with Our Identity in Christ
In “Atomic Habits,” author James Clear encourages readers to build identity-based habits. He writes, “The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity. It’s one thing to say I’m the type of person who wants this. It’s something very different to say I’m the type of person who is this” (p. 33). Right on, Mr. Clear! Who you are shapes how you think; and how you think shapes what you do. That’s why he encourages readers to create an identity that suits their goals—“I am not learning to play the violin; I am a musician; I am not trying to lose weight; I am a healthy person.” He even offers a two-step process to “changing your identity”: 1) Decide the type of person you want to be; 2) prove it to yourself with small wins.
This approach works quite effectively, but only to a point. Developing habits to jog, go to bed early, and eat more veggies are one thing. But when it comes to the deeper issues of guilt, shame, brokenness, and gospel transformation, we are eventually left hopeless without a solid identity before the Creator and Judge of the Universe.
Gospel-centered mentoring fixes our identity on Christ. Infinitely more important than being a musician, a healthy person, a Manchester United fan—or even a parent or spouse—the Christian is a baptized and beloved child of God, as John writes, “See what great 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). When German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was locked up in a Nazi concentration camp, awaiting certain execution, he supposedly asked, “Who am I?” Nothing prompts identity questions more than impending death. His answer was not “a German” or “a Lutheran pastor” or “an activist”, but “O God, I am thine!”
Throughout the New Testament, God shows us the connection between our new identity and becoming wholehearted children of God. For example, the Apostle Paul writes, “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died…Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:14,17). We are God’s new creation; that is our eternal identity through Christ. And that identity empowers and motivates us to become wholehearted followers who, “no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again” (verse 15).
As Christian mentees pursue wholeheartedness, the gospel-centered mentor regularly returns them to their true identity in Christ. You are not ultimately the sum of what you do or think; you are the baptized and beloved child of God. Additionally, your identity does not rest upon your progress toward wholeheartedness. It rests fully upon Christ’s declaration, “You are my beloved son/daughter whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” So, “Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the Lord loves rests between his shoulders” (Deuteronomy 33:12). Since nothing in all creation can separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:31-39), you are able to pursue wholeheartedness—not out of fear, because you are terrified of falling out of God’s favor, but because you want to thank him for his immeasurable grace! As the Augsburg Confession states, “It is also taught among us that…faith should produce good fruits and good works and that we must do all such good works as God has commanded, but we should do them for God’s sake and not place our trust in them as if thereby to merit favor before God.”[1] Because we already have God’s favor through Christ.
[1] Tappert, Theodore G., ed. The Book of Concord the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press, 1959. Print.
Next: Gospel-Centered Mentoring Centers on the Means of Grace…
[1] Tappert, Theodore G., ed. The Book of Concord the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press, 1959. Print.