Identity

Who are you? What is it that identifies you in this world? How important is Identity? Well it is more important than most of us think and it is a core issue in how we live out our Christian life. We live out of who we are; more specifically we live out of our identity. Who we believe we are determines how we act and react. It determines how we communicate and the filters we use for listening. Identity also determines our behavior and our ability to stay free and live life the way Jesus intended for us to experience it.

Many of us live out of an identity we developed a long time ago. That identity was crafted and manipulated using wounds and scars from our lives. Those painful experiences were used by the enemy as tools to keep us captive and many remain captive even in the midst of living the Christian life.

My identity as a dirty, useless piece of trash that would never amount to much was crafted with precision.  I learned a very basic lie, that the enemy seeks to control us with, very early in life. That lie is that God isn’t in control and that He really doesn’t care all that much about me. This identity helped guide me through several traumatic events in my life. Each event, defined through the lie, had become my truth.

It was all suppose to change when I became a Christian, old passing away and all things becoming new. However, that was not the pattern of my life and it was through this struggle that the enemy crafted one of his greatest lies in my life. It was the lie that I could never change, that no matter how hard I tried I would never be what God created me to be and this lie became my truth. I believed the word of God was true, I just didn’t believe it was true for me. I even believed it for everybody else; I just secretly knew that I was the exception. When you believe a lie, that lie becomes your truth and it will affect you as truth.

Here is where my freedom began; it started with my mind being renewed.  Romans 12:2 says Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2 NIV

I had been conformed to a pattern that was holding me captive and my way out was going to have to be a transformation that would occur through the renewing of my mind.

I came to the understanding that I had a spiritual enemy that wanted to keep me imprisoned, an enemy who sought to hold me in prison with the tool of lies.  John 8:44, Jesus said, When (the devil) lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. NIV

Here is one of the phenomenal truths I discovered. It is In Ephesians 2:10 and here is the portion that blew my mind, “…we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.  Ephesians 2:10 NLT

Paul tells us that God has a plan and that He planned it long ago. He has a purpose that is beyond our struggle. The Greek word for masterpiece literally means something designed with a designated purpose, workmanship, a masterpiece.  This truth was really hard for me to believe, “there was a day long ago that God crafted me with purpose?” I even thought, “well if that is true, I have messed up so bad I’ve voided that purpose.”

Here is the truth, He planned you and He wired you long ago for a specific purpose to accomplish good works and that if you are in Christ, if you are a follower of Christ, the truth is this: 

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation ; the old has gone, the new has come! 2 Corinthians 5:17-18 NIV

The truth is that He has already changed us but we keep playing by the enemy’s rules and we totally ignore the weapons Paul talked about in II Corinthians 10:3-5. They are weapons that have divine power to demolish strongholds. It is these strongholds that continue to hold us prisoner to lies. 

II Corinthians 10:3-5 Paul says, For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

So I decided to start waging war with weapons that have divine power. The first thing I did was to take thoughts captive.  I captured wrong thoughts, everything that came into my mind; everything that set itself up opposed to God’s truth.  I took those thoughts captive, and I made them obedient to Christ. 

I then began to speak truth, I said it out loud, I didn’t just think about truth, I didn’t just learn truth I began to speak truth. Scripture taught me that there was power in the words I said.  I discovered that spoken words have power that words that are just thought don’t have. The tongue has the power of life and death… Proverbs 18:21 NIV

I didn’t realize that the things that came out of my mouth had the power of life and death. I didn’t realize that not only was I thinking my defeat, those words found voice and I spoke it as well. I was giving power to a lie that led to a lifestyle of bondage and imprisonment. It was time for me to capture those wrong thoughts and speak the truth. 

A mentor of mine gave me a list of statements that the Bible stated were true about me. He gave them to me with the instruction to read them out loud, every morning and evening.  He told me not to just read them or think about them, he told me to speak them. It takes great faith to speak truth when everything around you tells you the opposite. 

I had to say things like, “I am an over comer by the blood of the Lamb and the word of my testimony.”  I said, “Greater is He who lives in me, God, than he that lives in the world, Satan.”  I said things like, “I’m the righteousness of God in Christ.  I am His friend.  I’m God’s adopted Son.”  And then I would say things like this.  “God loves me.  No, He even likes me, and He forgives me.  I’m His masterpiece.” 

When you have believed the enemy’s lies and your behavior has conformed to them it takes great faith to say words like that. Speaking the truth created a lifestyle where there is now physical evidence of transformation.  I spoke, and now I’m living it.  There is great power in the things that come out of our mouths. My Identity is now in Christ.