Identity

What do you choose to identify yourself as on this earth? It absolutely blows my mind when people ask others what they do or who they are and they choose to identify themselves by earthly standards. For instance, people define themselves as being part of a group or being involved in some certain activity. People define themselves as singer, actor, lawyer, filmmaker, cashier, homeless, careless, busy, stressed, teacher, student, writer, reader, idealist, leader, etc. etc. But as people define themselves they are not too quick to have the first thing they identify themselves as Christians. I'm not saying that everyone does that. I've met many people who the first thing they identified themselves as are Christians. But sadly, I've met many people who don't identify themselves as that first. I believe a lot with this flaw has to do with people not owning up to their identity in Christ. 
God should be the first and the most important thing we identify ourselves with. Why? Because He was there since the beginning.
He was there when He knit us together in our mother's womb (Psalm 139:13). I mean, our lives were intended to be a reflection of Him! We were created in His image in the very beginning (Genesis 1:27)! Well what happened to our identity in the beginning? The answer is that Adam and Eve went through a major identity crisis in the garden. They ate the fruit and they realized they were naked (Genesis 3:7). And then they hid from the Lord because they were afraid! By eating the fruit they separated themselves from the idea of being in a holy relationship with our Creator! Talk about a major identity crisis! But because of this, at least in one point in our lives we have fallen victim to this same identity crisis. We were being ruled by spirits of flesh and soul rather than the Holy Spirit. 
But there is beauty behind all of this and that is that we have been redeemed. 

"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;

the old has gone, the new has come!"

-2 Corinthians 5:17

When we accepted Christ we died to sin and became alive in Him (Romans 6:11)! We have been given life through the Holy Spirit (John 6:63). Therefore, since we live by the Spirit we are not a victim to the laws of sin and death (Romans 8:2). We are not chained to death but rather chained to the heavens and eternity (Romans 6:18). What does this mean? This means we have FREEDOM.

Since we have been saved, the Spirit abides within us. Our bodies are a temple to the Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16). And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (2 Cor. 3:17). So we have freedom in the Lord! We were always intended to have this freedom within us. This is made apparent in creation when God told Adam that he was FREE to eat from any tree in the garden (Genesis 2:16). God always intended for us to realize that we have freedom in Him but because of Adam and Eve's major identity crisis we have been separated from that. 

Therefore, why do we as people act like we don't have an identity with Christ? Why don't we own up to our identity? We are FREE but if we really acknowledged our identity with Christ, then we would live lives that only affirmed our freedom. A lot of us fall victim to the identity crisis of Adam and Eve when we give more importance to stress, work, circumstances, etc. etc. We fail to acknowledge that we are not mastered by anything on this earth because the only thing we are mastered by is God! We are His slaves, not slaves to anything else (Romans 6:18)! 

Our identity is by the Holy Spirit. 

I have a vision that we as people can live like a dove. I pray that we as people can just fly out and do the Lord's work amongst this earth and keep returning back to the Father (Gen. 8:8-12) because our identity is in Him. Now we see that in the baptism of Jesus the Holy Spirit was manifested in the form of a dove (Matthew 3:16). So we see that living like a dove has so much more significance to us! My prayer is that we can be like the dove: full of the Holy Spirit, glorifying the Lord throughout the earth, and returning back to the Lord  because our identity is in Him. 

Recognizing our identity in Christ is CRUCIAL.

It is my hope that with this blog, people will not get a glimpse of "my" intellect or wisdom, but rather people can get a glimpse of how the Holy Spirit has given me power and not only me but has given power to His people to carry out His work on this earth being full of the Spirit! For the Spirit gives us power (Acts 1:8, 2 Timothy 1:7). Recognizing our identity with Christ is POWER. It is FREEDOM. It is living our life out as God intended for it to be lived.

Let us not neglect the Holy Spirit alive within us. Let us realize that because of the Holy Spirit we have been given life. Let us realize that because there is ONE SPIRIT and that since the Holy Spirit is alive within ALL OF US that we can be unified through the acknowledgement of our identity, which is the Holy Spirit.  Let us live our lives out like we firmly believe we are of the Spirit and that we have freedom because of this.

"Since we live by the Spirit,

let us keep in step with the Spirit."

-Galatians 5:25