Identity
Matthew 16: 13-20
Illustration
by John K. Bergland

Do you know who you are? Psychologist Carl Jung focused on this issue:

Among all my patients in the second half of life, that is to say over thirty-five, there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost that which living religions of every age had given their followers. And none of them have them have been healed who did not regain his religious outlook. (Modern Man in Search of a Soul, New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1993).

What is the essence of Jung's affirmation? He is acknowledging the fact that human life is lost in meaningless meandering until it discovers its reason for being. What the psychologist calls "religious outlook," Jesus referred to as "the new birth." Jesus invited those who heard him while he walked on the earth to experience "new birth." He offers you the opportunity to discover who you are by knowing him.

Abingdon Preacher's Annual 1992, by John K. Bergland