Experience

Experience helps shape how we understand who we are. As first responders, our experience on the job validates not only what we do but also the identity we carry within our profession.

A firefighter who never trains or experiences firefighting may eventually struggle to see himself as a firefighter. A paramedic who trains but never puts into practice what he has been taught may struggle to feel prepared when the call comes. The same is true for a police officer or any other first responder. We may carry the title, but without dedication, consistency, and a life that reflects what we have been called to do, it can become difficult to live confidently in that identity.

For first responders, experience confirms the role we have been called to fulfill, but it does not establish our identity. Job experience comes after we are given the job, not before. In the same way, our works do not establish who we are in Christ; they reveal the work He has begun in us.

A person may genuinely want to save someone from a burning home, but stealing a fire truck and impersonating a firefighter does not make that person a firefighter. The same is true in law enforcement. Noble intentions and heroic actions do not give someone the authority or identity of a first responder. Identity and authority come before experience and performance.

This does not mean that good intentions, good morals, or acts of courage are meaningless. They can be genuinely good. A neighbor may run into a burning building to save someone. A bystander may begin CPR when someone suffers cardiac arrest. Someone may intervene to stop an assailant during a crisis. These actions can be courageous, selfless, and morally good. Yet the people performing them would not claim to be firefighters, paramedics, or police officers simply because they performed an action associated with those professions. Their experience may resemble the work of a first responder, but it does not give them the identity or authority of one.

The same principle applies to the Christian life. What we do does not make us who we are; who we are in Christ shapes what we do. Our works are not the foundation of our identity in Christ. They are the evidence of the new life He has begun in us. (Ephesians 2:10)

Our performance and experience do not earn God’s approval. We are made right with God and counted righteous solely because on the finished work of Jesus Christ: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

That changes everything.

As first responders, our service, career, and title may describe what we do, but they do not ultimately define who we are. Christ should be our identity. When our service becomes centered on our reputation, accomplishments, recognition, or desire to feel significant, we can lose sight of the deeper purpose and joy of serving others. Jesus offers us something greater than self-satisfaction: He offers us Himself.

When we know who we are and whose we are, our focus moves away from ourselves and back toward the mission.

That changes how we serve. As we grow in self-sacrifice, live for Christ rather than ourselves, and pursue obedience, not to earn His love, but because we already belong to Him, we begin to experience a life that is abundant and purposeful. Not a perfect life. Not a career without hardship. But a life and career anchored in something greater than ourselves.

We do not obey Christ to become His children; we obey because we are His children. Our obedience does not earn our identity; it reflects it. Just as a first responder's actions should reflect the role and authority already given to them, the Christian's life should reflect the new identity already given to them in Christ.

We cannot manufacture genuine righteousness or perform our way into God’s approval. The standard God requires cannot be met by you, me, or anyone else. It can only be met by Christ (Mark 10:18).

That is the power of the Gospel. God does not accept us because we have earned enough merit; He saves us by grace. Jesus bore what we deserved so that, through faith in Him, we could receive what we could never earn. Our experiences and works may validate the identity we carry, but they do not establish it. Christ does.

How should we view the evidence of our lives regarding salvation?

• Jesus Christ saved us at our worst not our best, evidence comes after salvation.

  • “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” -Romans 5:8

• The Holy Spirit lives in us. 

  • “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.” – Ephesians 1:13

• The new heart produces fruit.

  • “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” – Galatians 5:22-23. 

• A saved person loves the Lord and shows obedience to Him.

  • “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.”- 1 John 5:2-3

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