2. Holy Identity and Holy Thinking: Why Being Rooted in Christ and Thinking Like Him Matters

In this episode, Carrie discusses the two foundational pillars of living a whole and whole life: Rooting your identity in Christ first, and learning to adopt a kindgom-based minsdet in order to think like Jesus thinks. She discusses the differences between forming your identity in the world vs. forming your identity in Christ, and why choosing a faith-based mindset instead of a fear-based one significantly impacts the fruit of your ministry, how you show up for yourself and others in any circumstance, and how this impacts the mission and purpose God has for your life.

Radiating Christ Prayer

Encounter School of Ministry

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Transcript

Welcome to today's episode. I'm joining you on the feast of St. Carlo Acutis, the very first feast day of this brand new saint. He is one of my absolute favorite saints and I got to visit him last December in Assisi and it was so powerful getting to visit his tomb and ask for his intercession. And then yesterday, I had the privilege of going to visit the relics of Saint Therese, and my goodness what a powerful experience that was just getting to be in the presence of the relics of my patron saint, the saint of this podcast. This month is really special for saints. It's the month of the Rosary so Pope Leo suggested that everyone pray the rosary every day. So October is a pretty powerful month. Today, what I thought I would share with you is two core principles that I feel are foundational for living a whole and holy life. You're gonna hear me talk about these two things over and over again on this podcast. So I really wanted today to be a day of really teaching about these two principles that really drive everything else in your life and in your ministry.

So in thinking about living a whole and holy life, two things are essential, having a solid identity in Christ and being transformed by the renewing of the mind. They really come before everything and are essential in having a fruitful and thriving ministry in life in Christ, And really, unless these two principles are in place, we're not really going to be able to live out the life that Christ has planned for us. So I was really inspired by this topic from some recent experiences I've had. 

So I've been working with a Catholic life coach for the last year and got really inspired through working with my coach, Karla Fitz, so much so that I asked her to train me to be a coach because I just can't wait to bring this work to the world.
I've started working with clients and I will be certified next month. And I'm really excited to have her on the podcast to talk all about Catholic coaching and how it relates to these topics I'm mentioning today. I also started a program called Encounter School of Ministry, which teaches, equips, and activates students to demonstrate the love of God through the power of the Holy Spirit. It's a two year program that is just diving deep into using the gifts of the Holy Spirit to bring forth God's work through us. So these two experiences of Catholic coaching and Encounter have taught me the importance of being solidly rooted in Christ and how transformational it is to uncover negative thinking patterns and choose a kingdom mindset instead.

And I also love how everything I'm learning in Encounter and everything I've learned and then keeping learning through Catholic coaching lines up beautifully. These two are a match made in heaven and I couldn't think of two things that go together more beautifully. So I'm really grateful to be able to share about these two concepts and how living these two concepts really helps you to live out the whole and holy catholic lifestyle.

So let's talk about identity in Christ first. So growing up, we can either form our identity based on the world and things of the world, or we can form identity in Christ. So our secular world will teach you that you are the things that you have, the things that you do, the people you associate with, your family, your friends. So in that sense, we form our identity in things of the world and we can develop a performance based identity, which is building our identity based on externals and achievements. So we try to earn who we are and work for love. It's based on thinking I am what I do. I am what I have. O+I am what I become. So I grew up with the encouragement to identify myself with things by my grades. I remember getting money if I got all A's on my report card. I learned to identify with my achievements, the sports I played, which colleges I went to, what type of job I had, and what type of career I would eventually have.

With performance based identity, we achieve our identity in the following order by what we do, what we have and who we become. You think things like, I have to do something to have something to become someone. So I have to get good grades so I can go to a really good school so I can get a really good job and then I'll be happy. We constantly have to grasp at the external for validation and praise and who we are can shift change, and is fleeting.

We can also base our identity in relationships with our parents, our spouses, our children, and by what other people think of us. And this was something that I lived was a huge part of my life before finding Christ. This can lead to a life of people pleasing and emptiness when we don't get the approval or accolades from others. 

A much easier approach, a much less complicated approach, is forming your identity in Christ. And this is still a new concept for me as a new Catholic because all of my life I identified with things of the world. When we form our identity in Christ, we don't have to earn anything. It comes from him, his graces and his sacrifice for us on the cross. It's totally undeserved, but he's such a good God who loves his children and wants us to be in relationship with him.

When we know who we are in him, we don't have to prove or defend anything. We stay in relationship to him and look for for validation in God, the father. With identity in Christ, our identity is in the following order. I am, I have, and I do. So you're rooted in Christ first and what you then have and do comes forth from that solid grounded, peaceful place. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

So our identity in him is eternal. By our baptism, Jesus has commissioned us to go out and make disciples of all nations by his power and authority, for us to be priests, prophets, and kings.  He's given us this authority to minister to the body of Christ by working through us. So there's a partnership there with him. There's nothing more that delights him than us being temples of the Holy Spirit to work through.

John 1 4:4says, you are of God little children, and you have conquered them because the one who is in you is greater than the one in the world. And St. Teresa of Avila has this beautiful quote that I love that says, "You pay God a compliment by asking great things of him." So by our baptism, we get to do the work that God places within us and he commissions us to ask great things of him, but when we're not rooted in him and we're rooted in other things, it's much more difficult for us to do this. When our identity is rooted in Christ, we focus on greater intimacy with him through being in constant prayer and communion with him to fulfill his plans for our life. So there's a lot of examples in the Bible where Jesus went away from the crowds. He'd been healing people all day, ministering to the sick, and he would go away in a quiet place and pray to his heavenly father.

And he calls us to do the same thing. We have a lot going on in our lives and there's demands and we're trying to have this fruitful ministry. If we are not grounded in him, spending time with him, building our relationship with him, putting everything we're concerned about at his feet, praising him in the good times, praising him in the storms, then we aren't really building that solid intimacy and relationship with him.

Through this identity in him, we also have a genuine desire to be obedient to him, not out of fear, but out of wanting to do what's righteous and what's going to be good for our relationship with him and others. If you love God, you no longer want to sin or hurt him. So it's kind of like when you wanna build relationships with those around you, if you never talk to them and never see them and never think of them, then you're not really in a relationship. So He's calling us to have that constant communion with Him. 

And one of the things I like to do is spend 30 minutes a day in prayer with him to keep building that relationship. And that's something that's taken me some time to build, but those days that I don't do it, I feel it. So it's really a priority for me. Jesus died so we could have the same access to the Father as he did. So Christ gives us our identity in him, the authority to carry out his will, and a mission where we can serve with him using the talents and desires he's put in our hearts to bring goodness to the world. We become anchored in his firm foundation and our identity involves Christ being at the center of everything in our lives. So this is very different from having your identity in the world. When I did not know Christ, I put my identity in my career, in my spiritual practices, and I was all over the place. I wasn't grounded and I find that having my identity in Him, things flow more smoothly. I feel more peace and joy and abundance. So when we move from having our identity in things of the world to our identity in Christ, God really starts to mature our soul and our thinking. Our lives become full of purpose, meaning, joy and abundance.

We go from reliance on ourselves and the world to full reliance and obedience in Him. We work collaboratively with Him to bring His will from heaven to earth. We minister from what He's done for us on the cross as temples of the Holy Spirit, and we get to choose to steward that well or not. When we go out to serve others in the world, whether it's in our homes with our families, at our jobs with a difficult coworker or a demanding boss, at church, or when you're stuck in traffic, in order to live a holy and virtuous life, we need to, as Paul said in Romans 12:2 do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of the mind. If we're not constantly being transformed by the renewing of our mind, we end up hurting ourselves and others. We focus on lack and limitation of God's abundance and graces. We end up reacting instead of responding to the world and the people around us. We buy into our negative, limiting beliefs and stories. Instead of chasing Jesus, we chase spiritual experiences or spiritual retreats. And we live in constant doubt about God's goodness by putting him in a box. When we do this, we limit the possibilities of what he can do by staying in a state of what we think is reasonable and rational. Our God is not a reasonable or rational God. We stop boldly participating with him to bring forth the mission he's assigned to us and we doubt his greatness. So we're left with an important question to ask ourselves: Is what I'm thinking strengthening or weakening my faith?

So how do we renew the mind? Simply put, faith and reason come together. Proverbs 3: 5- 6 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, submit to him and he will make your path straight." So we go from relying on ourselves and what we think we can do to fully relying on God. So He is the pilot of the airplane and we are the co-pilot, and just
sitting with Him as he's directing things and we are co-creating together.

We need to become aware of when we choose negative fear-based thoughts and narratives and what the consequences of those thoughts have been. Because we're gonna get very different results when we have a lack mentality versus a kingdom-based mentality. We partner with Jesus from a deep sense of identity in him and repent or move in a new direction with our thoughts. So this is the process of what happens.

So we go from a fear-based mindset, or scarcity mindset, to a kingdom-based mindset. In other words, we start thinking from a heavenly perspective or thinking like God thinks, which is called metanoia. It's a Greek word, and it just means how we think determines how we act. It's a constant process of renewal. It's a daily thing. We are human, so we're going to be tempted into negative thinking. We also have an enemy that likes to spew lies into our head about what's happening around us. So this side of heaven, we're not gonna be perfect in our thinking. However, we can learn to have dominion and authority over the thoughts we choose to entertain.

And I think of the story in the Bible about feeding the 5,000. They were presented with five loaves and two fish.  The disciples were  freaking out and saying, "What do want us to do? There's all these people and there's, five loaves and two fish. And Jesus did not start worrying. He didn't have this lack mentality that God would not provide. And instead he rebuked the disciples for, their thinking. And then they decided to lean on their faith and lean not on their own understanding. He broke the bread, and then there was more than enough food for the crowds. And so Jesus was teaching them that they can think like he thinks, thinking from heaven's perspective, because in heaven there's no lack and there's no doubt. And also in the parable about calming the storm, there was this huge storm and the disciples were in the boat and Jesus was sleeping through the storm. The disciples were freaking out again, saying like, "Why are you sleeping?" You know, in heaven, there are no storms and He was so connected to His heavenly father that He knew everything was going to be okay. And he just said the words for the storm to be calm and it was calmed. So we can learn a lot from Jesus about God's provision and what God can do. When you start to question your fear-based thinking, you shift from overwhelm about your perceived problems to finding solution with God and seeking alternative ways to think about the same circumstances.

So with Jesus, we learn our circumstances and our environment don't dictate the fruitfulness of our ministry. Our world will try to tell us that everything out there is to blame for why things aren't working out, why there's so much evil in the world. But we have a choice and we can have an understanding that circumstances are neutral. Circumstances don't change. They are always neutral. It's the meaning we assign to them that cause us pain or peace. We have the power through God to change how we think about them. We go from the being the victim of our circumstances to having empowerment and agency over them. We stop complaining and we start praising God. We stop telling God how big our problems are and we start telling our problems how big God is. The impossible starts to look possible and fear is transformed into excitement. We literally bring heaven to earth. And an important thing to know is what we carry in ourselves through God has the power to transform the mood in a room, to eradicate sin and others and bring order and peace into chaotic and seemingly desperate situations. There's an analogy that I learned through Encounter about being a thermometer or a thermostat. I love this so much.

So thermometers go up and down based on what's happening in the room, the temperature changes. So if you walk into a room and there's a lot of depression and anxiety, if you're a thermometer, you're gonna match whatever the emotion is in that room. Thermostats on the other hand set the temperature. So if you know that there's a situation in your life that's chaotic, you can go into that room as a thermostat and you set temperature based on what you bring into that room. And if you know that you have God within you and you can be that light of Christ to others, you literally have the power with God to transform that room.

1 John 4:16  says, "God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him." So we're literally equipped when we go into any circumstance, any situation, because we have God with us. Burdens and challenges become opportunities to trust him more and the complex becomes simple. We recognize we are in gratitude for his endless provision. We turn to him and praise and thank him in all situations, not just when it's convenient or when we desperately need Him.

The purpose of a renewed mind isn't just for us, although it will bring us less anxiety and more trust in His peace. It strengthens our ability to prove or demonstrate the will and goodness of God to others. So tying this all into Catholic coaching, our renewed thoughts impact our beliefs and our emotions, which in turn drive our actions and the results we create with God at the center. When we think like God thinks, our brain literally looks for all the ways his goodness shows up around us. We get to partner with God to create heaven on earth. In contrast, when we're living in negative narratives, we prove to ourselves how much things are not working out, and we can even blame Jesus for not answering our prayers. We have shirked all responsibility for our thoughts and actions, and can't live God's mission for our lives. I'm really excited to bring you the tools from what I've learned in Catholic coaching to help you in the process of renewing your mind. It's truly transformational and it's brought so much peace and lightness and joy into my life. It's just amazing, amazing work. Renewed thinking helps us look at our unintentional thoughts with neutrality so we can then question their validity and what results they lead to. Because all of your thinking leads to results. This helps us to see how they are impacting our lives and the lives of others.

Our renewed mind also impacts how we show up in every single aspect of our lives, our interactions with God, with others and ourselves. You get to decide if you want to be the thermometer or the thermostat. Lastly, and really importantly, our renewed mind gives us freedom from fear. The opposite of metanoia is paranoia. So we have a choice about what reality we want to live in. Our renewed one,
or a paranoid one. 2 Timothy 1:7 says, for "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but one of power and of love and a sound mind." When we think from a kingdom perspective, we start seeing God and heaven everywhere. We literally collect evidence. And 1 John 4:18 tells us that, "Perfect love casts out fear. "We have Emmanuel, or God with us, guiding us through the mission He's put into our hearts.

So as we wrap up on identity in Christ and transformation through the renewing of the mind, I invite you to ask yourself these questions this week. I'll put these in the show notes as well so you can reference them later. So praying with the Holy Spirit's guidance and direction, maybe at home with your journal, or during a visit to Jesus in the blessed sacrament:

1. What or who am I putting my identity in? What does it mean for me to put my identity in Christ instead of the world?

2. Where does my mind need to be renewed? What branches or limiting beliefs is Jesus calling me to be pruned?

3. What is the mission that God has put into your heart to serve his people? Am I serving that mission with a kingdom-based mindset or a fear-based mindset? What types of renewed thoughts will lead to fruit in this mission?

4. Am I a thermostat or a thermometer? How can I bring God's light into a circumstance that feels challenging?

I want to end with the Radiating Christ Prayer by St. John Henry Newman. This is one that I have been praying for quite some time now. I really enjoy praying this after receiving Jesus in the Eucharist. It reminds me that we always have a choice to bring peace and light into the world through him. I hope you enjoy it and I look forward to seeing you next week.

Radiating Christ Prayer

"Dear Jesus, help me to spread your fragrance wherever I go. Flood my soul with your spirit and life. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of yours. Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact may feel your presence in my soul. Let them look up and see no longer me, but only Jesus. Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as you shine. So to shine as to be a light to others. The light, Jesus, will be all from you. None of it will be mine. It will be you shining on others through me. Let me thus praise you in the way you love best. By shining on those around me. Let me preach you without preaching, not by words. But by the example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to you."

-St. John Henry Newman