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A PSEUDO-IDENTITY

One of the most damaging aspects of sin upon the soul of fallen man is that it will lead a person on a never-ending goose chase to find their "true self" or "true identity." Unfortunately, this quest bears about as much fruit as a group of first-year boy scouts going snipe hunting in the dark. Yet sin propels humanity onward like a hungry beast chasing the elusive carrot. 

Instead of looking outside of ourselves to the one true God, who is blessed forever, sin will coax men and cajole women to search for their identity within their gender, sexual preferences, body size, wealth, status, children, careers, emotions, diseases, and virtually everything else. This is the very picture of idolatry: finding yourself defined by and controlled by the creaturely instead of the creator (Romans 1:25), which lead nowhere but hell.

Today, the most pervasive and pernicious campaign to derail human identity, in my humble opinion, is the transgender movement. Like all idolatrous movements before it, it has its own myth concerning its version of the fall, redemption, and future glory that it shamelessly puts forward to unsuspecting victims. 

Instead of seeing the fall as separation from the one true God, transgender ideology sees that they have been separated from the correct set of genitals, which becomes fuel for their version of salvation. Instead of repenting, accepting who God designed them to be, turning to Christ for regeneration and hope, and then living in the Spirit for their sanctification, the transgender community promises that salvation can only come if you will surgically remove your breasts, chemically castrate your penises, take dangerous hormone therapy, and make your innies into outies. If you submit to Dr. Waldman's madness, becoming a modern-day Frankenstein, you can have a mirage of hope. You will be promised freedom and salvation from the sin of being born in the wrong body, but that salvation is only skin deep. 

Tragically, this has led to disastrous outcomes for many people, who, instead of finding heaven on the other side of a scalpel, have found only hellish depression, phantom pains, and the despair of unmet expectations leading many to commit suicide in their hopelessness. So clearly, the trans myth of salvation is just that, a myth. 

THE REAL TRANS IDENTITY

Whether a man or woman identifies as transgendered, is in the process of transitioning, or is holding the megaphone as a trans activist, their actual identity does not come from the presence of unwanted body parts but in the fact that they are TRANSgressors against the Living God. That is their true identity. Under every aberrant sin, every deviant craving, or misplaced affection, is the painful truth that we have all rebelled against God and embraced confusion instead of truth. 

The Bible says that all people have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). Together, we have all become worthless in our sin. And there is nothing within us that can fix everything that has been broken inside of us(Mark 7:20-23). Because of that, hope for the Trans community, and for every other transgressor, will not come from remaining in our sins, but by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, and by turning from our sins, and embracing the new identity that Jesus has purchased for us. 

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11: 

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such WERE some of you. BUT you were WASHED, you were SANCTIFIED, you were JUSTIFIED in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. - 1 Cor 6:9-11

Paul is teaching us a powerful truth. Christians do not remain in their sin but flee from it. He is saying that the only "transitioning" that will fix the transgender community and all the rest of us transgressors is to be TRANSferred, by Jesus, out of the realm of darkness and into His kingdom of marvelous His light (1 Pt 2:9). We must be washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, by the power of the Spirit, so that our sin is in our past and not our ongoing identity in the present. 

The hope that this will bring cannot be understated. Paul tells us in his second letter to the Corinthians, saying:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

By this logic, every Christian has a "trans" identity. In our sin, we were once TRANSgressors, but Jesus graciously TRANSferred us out of Satan's dominion and has TRANSplanted us into His family so that we can TRANSlate the Gospel into all languages and TRANSmit it to all people, TRANSforming this world into His image, until the glorious day when we TRANSition into new and incorruptible flesh to live forever with Him. 

Transgenderism is a philosophy that aims too low and accomplishes too little. Our identity is not in our genitals. Our salvation does not come from cutting off working organs. Our identity comes from the Lord Jesus Christ, who is transforming us into NEW CREATIONS! 

As Christians, let us pray that the Lord would awaken, save, and redeem men and women who are being lied to, carved up by wicked doctors, and need more than anything to hear and experience the hope of Jesus' life-changing Gospel. 

Let us also be ready at all times to share that Gospel with all who will listen. 

15 but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; 16 and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame.  - 1 Peter 3:15-16