John Ashley Null is both a scholar-theologian and has served as a chaplain to the British team competing in the Olympic games. He offers this book, Performance Identity, out of his reformed studies and his pastoral heart for elite athletes who have struggled with their identity in the spotlight of the highs and lows of winning and losing.

This book is not written specifically for the athlete but rather, its aim is for every reader whose identity is wrapped around his or her performance and approval. Doctor Ashley has observed, after many years of ministry, that an identity-built-on-performance mentality plagues every son and daughter of Adam.

In this short book of 75 pages, Ashley Null begins the first half of his book by laying the groundwork for understanding the gospel of grace rooted in the heart of God's love for sinners. In the second half of the book, Null offers two case studies for his readers.

The first case study involves a six-step Garden-temptation of the Devil that led Adam and Eve into the enslavement of performance identity. The second case study concerns Saul/Paul's conversion from a performance identity under the works of the Law to a Christ-identity in terms of faith resting in the righteousness of Jesus. These two case studies highlight the bold difference between the two identities.  

Let's ever so briefly get a taste of the sweet doctrine of grace offered in the first half of the book for the encouragement of the heart. Our author begins his book with an exposition of the prodigal son and in so doing grounds the reader in the doctrine of grace. He rivetingly walks through the narrative focusing his reader's attention on the love of the Father that embraced the prodigal with an unconditional love and grace that produced repentance and confession of sin.

Doctor Null observes that the prodigal's musing in the pig pen was not repentance as is so often thought, but rather an offer of performance-identity as a servant, rather than a son. The prodigal son was continuing to set the terms, intending to barter with his father to establish a relationship built on works.

Yet, when the Father came running with an embrace of saving-love, the prodigal did not offer his terms of performance, but instead openly confessed his sin and his unworthiness as a son. The Father interrupts full stop with the promise of gracious celebration!

This is the order of God's saving grace: first, God's love is poured out into the heart through the free offer of the gospel, and then the fruit of faith is gifted by God that issues forth in confession of sin and the celebration of the fruit of loving obedience out of gratitude rather than performance. 

Ashley explains the first-order of grace in the following quotes: "First comes our relationship with God in Christ as a gift. And as an expression of that relationship, God gives us works to do - with, through and in him" (p. 18). Or in other words, "Our identity, our worth and value, is found in Christ alone and in his cross. We are given - by grace - an eternal worth that doesn't depend on the ups and downs of our faithfulness, our holiness, our intensity for Christ. Our worth depends instead on his promise for us, which leads to love welling up in our hearts that empowers us to express gratitude by doing the works that he has set aside for us" (p. 18). He continues, "Therefore the heart of the Gospel is that we find our identity not in what we do for Christ but what Christ has done for us" (p. 19). Furthermore, "Getting the cart and the horse in the right order is at the heart of the Gospel. We do not earn God's love. We receive it. And when we receive it, it has a transforming power in our heart. Our gratitude for a relationship with God fuels our desire to express that love in service to him and others" (p. 19).  

May this little booklet remind us that turning the order upside down, our faithfulness to receive grace, leads to the soul-crushing performance identity. Only in the bosom of the Father's love and grace for us in Christ are we granted the faith that bears the fruit of love for him for, "we love because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19).