In the second book of Samuel, chapter 7 and vs. 18, we read, "Then went king David in, and sat before the LORD, and he said, Who am I, O Lord GOD? and what is my house, that thou hast brought me hitherto?"
What a great thing it is if we find out who and what we really are! To find out we dare not question the deceitful heart within us or the many sinners like us around us. No, we must as David ask the true and living God, "Who am I?" This is because we are not who we think or feel we are nor what others say we are but who God says we are! God has said what we are in His word. He says that in ourselves we are sinners, ungodly, lost and condemned. It is only in the light of the high and holy One that inhabits eternity that we see light. Further, it is only by the Spirit of light that we are made to truly feel and confess who we are. Who we really are is to be seen and felt only "before the Lord" and not before men. In the year that king Uzziah died, Isaiah "saw the Lord high and lifted up." Then and only then did he confess, "I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unlcean lips." Abraham would confess himself but "dust and ashes." Jacob would be wrestled down by the Angel to own up to the reality of his name, "conniver, supplanter." He would confess, "I am less than all." David would further admit, "I am a worm and no man." Job must be delivered from his self-righteosness to confess, "I am vile." "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear but now mine eye seeth thee; wherefore, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Peter must acknowledge, "I am a sinful man, O Lord." Paul must own up to being "the chief of sinners" and John must fall "as dead" before the Lord. We must be emptied in order for God to fill us. We must believe what He says we are in ourselves in order for us to be able to believe what He says we are in Christ! All that He "kills" in this sense, He "makes alive" by His Spirit, He enables them to know and feel in a measure of what He has "made" them in His Son. "Who am I?" Nothing but a sinner in myself! But "who am I" before the Lord in Christ? Nothing but perfection, holiness and righteousness. "Complete in Him." Joy of joys! Who am I? All that my Substitute and Representative, the Lord Jesus Christ, is before God! As Paul, "I am what I am by the grace of God."