"The Blessedness of Adam in his creation ... makes plain what humankind's identity as creatures ought to be. The fundamental identity of every man, woman and child is that of a divine image bearer. That is what human beings were created to be. What that means for us today is that our identity is not found in our sin. Often the most difficult part of turning away from a particular sin that has infiltrated your life is the feeling that, in rejecting that sin, you are rejecting part of who you are. You think that if you surrender your bitterness against "that person" who did "that thing" to you, you will be surrendering part of who you are. If you seek to distance yourself from a particular vice or addiction that has been a part of your life for so long, you will be setting aside a part of yourself. If you cease gossiping, if you curb your natural inclinations in order to avoid offending others, if you scale back your desires in order to increase the peace of Christ's church or to send the gospel forward into the world, you suppose that your are sacrificing your very identity. You are not. You are sacrificing your sin. You are sacrificing a distortion of your identity in order to find your true identity as an image bearer who dwells with and worships the God who made you. None of us can excuse our sin by saying dismissively, "This is just the way God made me." All men and women do have particular, and different, sins seemingly stitched into their fallen identity,. But those sins, even if they are present by nature and not by choice, are not part of humanity's fundamental identity. God made us for communion with Himself and communion with HIs people. That is where we are to find our identity. Do not sacrifice who God made you to be in order to cling to what sin has distorted you to become. You were meant for holiness. Embrace it, not your sin."

- Stephen G Meyers, God to Us: Covenant Theology in Scripture, pg 74