I am truly blessed. I am a child of God. I know who I am in Christ. I am rare. Most born again believers don’t know who they are in Christ. They don’t know what their true identity is, therefore they have found their identity in something other than Christ. Worse still, they have found their identity in their works in the church. I was one of those people. I was identified with my family, my church, my choir, my group of friends. I didn’t have a real understanding of who I really was. What happens when you are removed from those things that identified you and you identified with? I can tell you it is life changing. Thank God He planted me in a place where I was taught my true identity. Had I not been taught this truth, I would still be striving to find myself in what I do.
I think the church has failed its’ people in this area. The average church focuses on the “do” rather than teaching the “who”. I have learned that identity always comes first. Activity always comes next. God created man on the sixth day of creation. Can you imagine the scene as God created man from the dust of the earth? He gets down on all fours, breathes the breath of life into Adam. Adam opens his eyes and the first person He sees is God leaning over him and God says, “You are man and I am your God”. Adam looks into God’s eyes and sees himself. Adam receives his identity from His creator. What did God do the next day? He rested. He didn’t get out his “to do” list for Adam. I imagine that the seventh day was spent with Adam getting to know His Father. As my Dad would say, “That’ll get you out of the mire and put you in the choir!” The Word says that one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day to God. That day of rest could have actually been a thousand years of God spending time with Adam and Adam finding out who he was. Hmmmm… Food for thought.
I kind of like to think that God knows what He’s doing, don’t you? He gave man his identity and then told him what belonged to him and then told him to rule and reign over it. Don’t you think we should follow God’s example? When someone comes to know the Lord they should first be taught who they are. How can they know how to act or live if they don’t know who they are? When a person is born into a royal family they are told from birth who they are. For example, I’m sure Prince Charles, from birth, has been told that he is a Prince, and that he is royalty, that he comes from a royal lineage, and then was taught how a person of royalty behaves. In other words, this is who you are therefore, this is how you behave. In the same way, we need to teach new converts their new identity, who they are identified with and how to live. We are sometimes guilty of doing right the opposite. We teach what to do first and maybe they will learn something of who they are along the way. Is it any wonder so many get discouraged and fall by the wayside? No wonder so many Christians are being burned out in the churches. They are “doing” all these things out of their own strength and have never taught that His strength is now their strength.
I have seen brand new Christians given jobs as Sunday School teachers. A new Christian needs to be trained up in the knowledge of who they are before they are given any job to do. Not only do new believers need to be taught who they are but the church as a whole needs this teaching. My mother has been teaching the Crucified Life for many years and has seen it change lives. My life has been changed by this teaching. I have seen it transform lives.
I wish all of our churches were teaching this. If we want the church to be the church we must first learn who we are in Christ. It’s not how big our Sunday School is, or how many contacts we had this week. Is your church growing spiritually? Do they know who they are in Christ? Do they know their authority in Christ? Do they know the work of the cross? Do they know the power that is available through the gospel of Jesus Christ? Do they know they are a new creation in Christ? I pray that you will find a place to learn the truth about who you really are.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 2Cor. 5:17
(This is one of my earlier writings)
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