More Than What I Achieve: Finding Identity in Christ
- Nathan Cole
- Sep 30
- 3 min read
Updated: Oct 4
The quiet pressure to produce
It doesn’t always show up as a voice in your head. Sometimes it’s just the way your stomach drops when you see someone else’s career update on LinkedIn. Or the way you feel restless when you take a slow morning instead of ploughing through your to-do list.
I’ve carried this pressure — the sense that my worth hangs on what I get done. Work harder, study more, check the boxes, move the needle. If I achieve, I matter. If I don’t, I’m nothing.
It sounds dramatic when written out, but many of us quietly live this way.
The gospel against the grain
Ephesians 2:8–10 offers words that run against the cultural current:
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Here’s the order:
Saved by grace (not performance)
Through faith (not self-effort)
As a gift (not an achievement)
To do good works (not to prove our worth)
It’s not that work doesn’t matter. It’s that work flows from identity rather than creating it.
Achievements are fragile anchors
Building identity on achievement feels safe — until it doesn’t. Grades slip. Careers stall. Bodies slow down. Someone younger, faster, smarter enters the room. And then what?
If who I am depends on what I achieve, I’m always one failure away from collapse.
But if who I am depends on what Christ has done, the foundation is different. He doesn’t change. The cross doesn’t expire. His declaration of grace doesn’t wobble with the markets or the metrics.
Grace doesn’t erase work — it redeems it
Notice Paul’s flow: grace first, works second. We don’t earn grace by working; we work because grace has already been given.
That’s liberating. It means the tasks of the day — emails, spreadsheets, parenting, phone calls — are no longer auditions for acceptance. They are expressions of it. We work not to prove ourselves but to love others.
Grace doesn’t cancel diligence. It redeems it.
Living from acceptance, not for it
Imagine two people doing the same job. Outwardly they look identical — same desk, same deadlines, same tired commute. But one is working to prove they matter. The other is working because they already know they matter in Christ.
The difference is enormous. One is chained to achievement; the other is free to serve.
A word for the weary achiever
If you’re exhausted from carrying the weight of proving yourself, Ephesians 2 whispers something counter-cultural: you are God’s workmanship. His creation. His craft.
That means your identity is already given, not earned. Your worth is already secured, not negotiated. And your work — whatever it looks like — is part of God’s larger story, not the thing that defines you.
Where this leaves us
You are not your résumé. You are not your GPA. You are not your productivity stats.
You are God’s beloved, created in Christ Jesus for a life of grace-shaped good works.
And that means even on the days when you don’t achieve, you are still His.
Keep going
If you’d like a way to anchor this truth in your daily life, I’ve created a 30-day printable devotional journal called Identity in Christ. Each page is short: one passage, a reflection prompt, and space to pray. It’s designed to fit into ten quiet minutes a day, and it’s available as a PDF (US Letter/A4) or for GoodNotes.
At the end of the day, the truest thing about you isn’t what you’ve achieved – it’s what Christ has already done.
Where do you most feel the pull to prove yourself, and what helps you remember your worth is secure in Christ? I’d love to hear in the comments.
Originally published on Medium.
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