Our Identity

The word identity in Webster’s Dictionary is a set of characteristics that somebody recognizes as belonging uniquely to himself or herself and constitutes his or her individual personality for life. When we talk about personality we mean, the embodiment and essence of a persons interests, attitudes, behavioral patterns, emotional responses, social roles and other individual traits that endure over a long period of time. I have never encountered any one in my entire life that did not act out or give the impression that they did not have an awareness of having an identity of some type or fashion. Some that I have met don’t even have an awareness of what a complicated masterpiece of work that God made when He created him. I have come to understand that all of creation is laboring with in themselves to find what and who they are and what is the true meaning of life itself. Everyone on the planet whether they have an awareness of this or not are going through this process.

We have heard the term from people that, “I am having an identity crisis going on in my life.” It is my belief that all people on the planet are having an identity crisis in their lives of some sort. Some of them are more intense then others. Finding our identity was God’s fail-safe seed that He planted in mankind to find His creator and his purpose for living on this planet.

Romans 8:19-23 tells us, “The whole of creation meaning, all of nature waits expectantly and longs for God’s sons and daughters to know their identify with into themselves as to who they are. The reason for this is, our human nature was subjected to frailty and condemned to be frustrated not because of any fault on its own part, but by the will of Him who so subjected it (Yet) with great hope. God’s creation itself will be set free from decay, bondage and corruption when it knows that, we have the right to enter His courts because, we are becoming His glorious children which He always intended us to be. We should understand that all of God’s creation has been moaning and groaning with birthing pains until now. Not only His creation but we ourselves, who should be enjoying the first fruits of our relationship with the Holy Spirit now.

Where it says we are subjected to something, it does not mean that God allows this bondage and groaning in us because it is His way for us to pay for our sins and straighten up our lives as many believe. This word subjected means that, we are under the rule of a King and High Priest and are His subjects. His whole desire is on our behalf to personally focus His attention to deliver us in our quest for identity and purpose.

It was God’s intent to put Himself in frail human vessels so that the glory and excellence of His person could be physically seen by mankind. When Jesus was here walking the earth it says in Matthew 13:54-56, “ When He finished teaching in the Synagogue the people were astonished and said who is this man isn’t He a carpenter and Mary’s son and His brothers are James, Joses, Simon and Judas and his sisters. How did He talk with such authority?”

Is it possible that the body of Christ has in their endeavor to find their identity become idol worshipers of self and not understood that God wants to have no other God’s before Him? There is an abandonment and a surrendering of self that has to accompany our searching for identity. At times there are things transpiring in our lives that make no sense. Mankind has a terrible need to find accomplishment in their lives and be something. This always was God’s intent from the beginning.

I have never in my life time seen so many substitutes and sinking sand foundations that people are using to find out who they are and what life is all about. It was God’s plan to endow His creation with power and authority to restore what Adam and Eve surrendered to the Devil in the Garden of Eden. Man has continued to learn and create through technology and every possible gift given to them by their creator over these thousands of years and yet, the true awareness and the real love of God and a personal relationship of acceptance and Fatherly protection is being ignored and substituted by mans endeavors to pull God out of heaven and make Him into the Gold Calf of man’s own making.

What really is disturbing to me is even in our born again pulpits of today we have leaders telling people to follow Christ as they do and the people have become sheep led to the slaughter and are being molded into denominational robots for the sake of being accepted and thinking that that there is security in numbers.

Our true identity can only come to maturity as we discover that our relationship has to be lead by the Holy Spirit. This being a majority makes us winners.

Only where there is freedom of choice with out coercions and intimidation, will our identity be found.

We first have to come to realize that we have to have an abundant life with God and not just live in a survivor mode mentality before we can love each other as God intended. It is as we become independent to think with the mind of Christ and realize who we are before we can truly lay down our lives for each other. We need to learn how to become independent and know how important God wants us to stand up on the inside and approach His courts with out fear or reprisal of any sort.

Let’s ask the question, is it important that we join a certain camp and be followers of any church’s set of rules to be accepted by God?

Where in the scriptures does it say we have to be a Baptist, Pentecostal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Church of God, or Catholic or any other denomination? The Apostle Paul in 1Cor.1:11-13 states “I have heard that there is competition, rivalry, arguments and a lack of harmony going on among you. Some are saying that, I am following Paul’s teachings and some are following Appollos and some are following Peter’s teachings. Did you people take Christ and divide Him into parts. I didn’t die on the cross for you and you were not baptized into me the day you were born again.”

I hope that what I am saying here is not falling on ears that can not hear me. We have as many churches as we have bars in the city. God’s plans and ways are not directed to any one denomination. He first sees mankind as a whole and once He gets mankind to acknowledge their need for Him and become born again and we become His children, He then wants us to be focused on His face and know how we are to identify with Him.

He also wants us to know the gifts that He deposited in us that equips us to accomplish His purposes. He looks at His body as the whole not denominations with names on a building. Scripture tells us that Jesus is coming back for a church with out spot or wrinkle. He did not say that He was coming back for only a certain denomination. Even in writing this article. I really can not understand how God is going to bring His body together as one with the thousand of interpretations of scriptures going on to day.

The body of Christ is un-unified and I see no way of man in his own strength even with his fine intensions having the power to round up all of God’s scattered sheep, that are penned up in different denominational doctrines following the precepts of men. It is obvious to me that the body of Christ is like a run away train each part thinking they know God and have some monopoly and special privileges on this planet. This is nothing more than arrogance and prideful speculation with a lack of humility that some how, because they have been saved for years, educated with degrees and offices of leadership they have an exempt status and have God in their pocket. I can not tell you the last time I saw a preacher or teacher of the Gospel on T. V. break down and cry and tell the people that he was ministering to that, he was having some growing pains and needed some prayer and support.

I had an opportunity to meet and have a good conversation with a pastor some time back who told me that as a Pastor, he was to not be open and candid and transparent with his congregation with his struggles and needs. In Bible College he was told that was a no- no if they wanted to be successful. What is this idea that as you grow in the Lord and as you find your identity that, the Christian life doesn’t become more challenging and we have to lean even more on God’s grace to receive His favor.

David the King said “Goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life as I practice the presence of the Lord.” I find that God has planted and watered the seed He put in me way back when and my life has been turned upside down in the paths that I have walked.

Scripture tells us that, “We do not know what we will be because we are still being incubated in God’s nursery and I don’t know about you but I seek God because of necessity because I have found that only when I connect with Him do I find myself satisfied. When there is no Godly presence operating in one’s life, it is impossible for one to find their identity. Our identity is in us recognizing our relationship with Him.

I have found that meditating on the word day and night as God tells us to do, I am constantly being persuaded to change my thinking and do it God’s way. It is as we walk in obedience to that still small voice of the Holy Spirit that causes us to change or repent of our ways and find our true identity as the Holy Spirit reveals it to us. If you are going through this process, you must have come to recognize that, there is a separation and a coming away alone unto God that begins to take place. For me once I recognized this it was easier for me to come away and seek after a person I could not see with my physical eye.

For me and I believe it to be a God characteristic planted in us from birth to want to be affirmed and have a sense of belonging among people of like goals and vision. I have found that to many born again believers ( God forgive them for they know not who they are) have been trained to wear an overcoat of the acceptable norm of what a Christian is supposed to be but, they have no deep roots in them. When this situation exists and the storms of life come they run for cover, forget that they were bought with Jesus own blood on the cross and integrity goes out the window. This idea of finding our identity in God for me is a very real battle and I have to ask God with tears at times to hold on to me tightly because some of the growing pains in my life have been intense.

In Matthew 19:29 Jesus says, “Anyone and everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother for My names sake. Will receive a hundred times more and inherit eternal life.” God is not talking about our here after rewards. He’s talking in the now while we are still in our unregenerate physical bodies. We need to understand that God’s kingdom as already come and is alive in us. This separation and the tugging of the Holy Spirit with in us at times, becomes a intense battle and our flesh has a strong tendency to not focus on God‘s desire and hunger to love His children. The last thing we need is sitting in pews Sunday after Sunday where spiritual hype is being substituted for the anointing of God. From scripture, the only people Jesus had a problem with were the religious crowd. Let me make myself clear on this point. I know that my wholeness in life and the discovering of my identity is, “in loving the Lord with all my heart, soul and mind and my neighbor as myself.”

There is no loving with out knowing who you are and acknowledging to God how weak and frail you are with in yourself.

If we just take one example from the Old Testament. Three and one half million Jews walked in the wilderness for forty years and never got into the Promised Land or operated in the inheritance that God wanted to give them. Only two out of the bunch did, Caleb and Joshua. Could and is it necessary that our own ignorance of surrendering to God’s wisdom can cause this type of travesty to happen again? Identity is found in us being tested by God through circumstances where our foundation of beliefs are questioned with in us and we have to learn how to submit to these emotional experiences. This happens as we trust that God really loves us and He will never forsake us even when the circumstances look hopeless. I have been there many times.

I am becoming a believer in eternal security. I said becoming because every day in my meditating with the Holy Spirit He is securing me and delivering me from my fears and anxieties. That’s right, am I not entitled to be part of God’s process and go through my own growing pains. There is no shame unless, you have a big ego and pride dominating your life to the point that, you can’t cry out to God and fellow Christians who carry the same infirmities and longings that you do.

We know that God is love. Knowing who we are is like watering the seed of love relationship with God deep with in our thoughts, will and emotions. There is no way that two people can walk together with a common vision and passion with purpose even though both are born again believers if, there is not a common bound of each one seeking for a higher wisdom then their own.

It is a no brainer that all people have things in common to talk about. Scripture tells us to walk in harmony with all men to the best of our ability. Some believe one way and some another. Once you’re born again for me that means, I am going to heaven period no matter what happens. To others they believe if you sin and die in that state even though you are born again you lose your salvation and go to hell. I have no problem loving people who do not hold to my beliefs. I will with great patience and determination however try with everything in me in prayer and persuasion to enlighten and instruct people who I believe are opposing them selves and have either become un-teachable and afraid to grow and change because their beliefs have become a weight around their neck.

This at times has caused me great emotional pain because I have had to let go of relationships with people who have no common ground to share my desires and need to grow. I have been persuaded by God to not be a wilderness walker like so many others and loose my portion of my inheritance from God.

In closing and this being a living letter there is no closing with God. Discovering who we are in Christ is the meaning of life. At times the road is lonely. However, we know that no man is an island. Scripture tells us where ever two are gathered and discussing God‘s purposes and the Holy Spirit is doing the teaching, Jesus is there. Intimacy with God at times is glorious, at times perplexing, at times learning patience, at times in wonderment, at times feelings of great despair. However, when we go through all these feelings we discover a safe harbor from the storms of life.

God help us to know how to find this safe harbor with in us. This harbor is found in God’s throne room and seat of loving mercy and patient grace that we all desperately need. Our true identity is found in the child with in us where we learn to have a child like trust. I am still learning how to come into God’s throne room with out wearing a tuxedo and strutting my stuff. There is a great fine tuning going on in the body of Christ today. Let’s make a commitment together to be a part of God’s processing.