We're at the beginning of the year and I have this reminder to give to you. God made you to be you.

He didn't make you to be what your parents wanted you to be or what your ex-girlfriend or your spouse

or your boss or your friends want you to be. God wants you to be exactly who he created you to be.

That means that you have to refuse to be defined by others.

Hebrews 1124 says this.

By faith, Moses, when he had grown up,

refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

Moses had an identity crisis.

See, he was born a Hebrew slave,

but raised in an Egyptian royalty, the grandson of Pharaoh.

When he grew up, he had two choices.

He could pretend to be Pharaoh's grandson for the

rest of his life and live a life of luxury and fame and power, or he could admit to who he really was.

A Jew. If he did, his family would kick him out to live with the slaves the rest of his life.

He would be disgraced and humiliated and live a life of pain and drudgery. Which would you choose?

Most people today are living lies. They're trying to be people or they're not. But Moses refused to live a lie because he was a man

of integrity, all kinds of peer pressure, and yet he insisted on being who God made him to be.

My question for you is this. Who are you letting determine your identity?

I mean, let's get real.

Some of you have parents that died years ago,

and yet you're still trying to live up to their expectations.

Or some of us might be hanging on to what an ex-lover or an ex-husband

...