We are dealing with a massive problem in these days and that is with our identity. It’s an identity crisis. Boys not knowing whether they are boys and identifying as girls and visa versa. Not only that there are those who identify as being animals!! Its mind-boggling. How has this happened? When you look at scripture you see that it’s not new and has been a problem since the Garden of Eden for the Devil doesn’t want us to know who we are.
Adam and Eve were made in the image of God yet fell for the Devil’s lie when He said that they weren’t like God. He got them to doubt who they were and they ended up sinning and the rest is history.
“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ” “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:2-4
God created man in His own image, and they were already like God.
“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27
As Christians, we may laugh at how ridiculous it is that people don’t know who they are, but the Devil has subtly tricked us into doing exactly the same thing. We are made in His image yet our actions show that we don’t believe it. We miss out on God’s best by having the wrong identity. We too have an identity crisis, which is very subtle and this wrong thinking is costing us dearly. Let me explain.
When you look at the story of the woman who had the issue of blood coming to Jesus for a healing. Who would you identify with? Most of us would identify with the woman, wouldn’t we? But when you consider the truth in the light of all that has happened since the cross we are now to identify with Jesus and not her. Before Jesus died for the sins of the world, everyone was a sinner, in need of a Saviour. Jesus said that John the Baptist was the greatest of all the Prophets, yet in the Kingdom that we are now, we are greater than he was – for we are IN Christ.
“Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” Matthew 11:11
Anyone before the cross who had not received Jesus into their life was a sinner, no matter how great they were under the old covenant. All of us who have been saved, have put on Christ. We are in Him and He is in us. We are now to identify with Jesus rather than the woman with the issue of blood. He is our identity and not her. She came to Jesus to receive but we being in Christ have everything in Christ. He is our life, our source and our health. We are not in receive mode like she was, but in release mode.
This truth may seem insignificant but the repercussions are enormous. We so often identify with the sinner rather than the Saviour and that creates an identity crisis. It effects the way we think so that we don’t know our position, our possessions, and our perspective on life. Your position now is not that of a sinner, your position is that of someone in Christ and being in Christ His life is flowing in and through you. Jesus gave a wonderful analogy of how He is the Vine and we are the branches attached to the vine. If this is so then the same sap that flows through the Vine (Jesus) is flowing in and through us.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5
The Devil has done a good job in getting us Christians to identity with the wrong thing for He knows that it will effect our perspective on life. The Spirit may managed to got you to see that you are accepted in Christ, and that you are no longer a ‘worm’ in His eyes, but you can still be blinded to your position, your identity. We are IN Christ. Do we really believe this? We may say it, yet still identify with a sinner who doesn’t have anything and needs to come to Jesus to get it.
A major shift takes place when we really see yourselves in Christ. We have been made righteous and in so being we are as holy as Christ is, positioned to receive all that He is and all that He has. His life is now ours along with forgiveness of sin and healing. You can’t be joined to Him unless you as righteous, as right as He is. He made us this way through the cleansing of His blood.
“Therefore, if anyone is IN Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” 2 Corinthians 5:17
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21
We are now the righteousness of God in Christ. Our roots are in righteousness and the fruit from this position is healing. Our old identity is dead, for we are now dead to sin. Our roots were once in sin and the fruits of that produced sickness and disease, but now we are in Christ dead to sin. Being righteous is your identity now and not that of a sinner.
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20
We need to see ourselves in Christ. We also need to set our sights even higher and see ourselves in the glorified Christ, seated at the right hand of the Father. Jesus said that we are to know this and Paul declared it too.
“And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,” Ephesians 2:6
“As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk IN Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.” Colossians 2:6-7
“For IN Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete IN Him, who is the head of all principality and power.” Colossians 2:9-10
“If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.” Colossians 3:1-4
1 Peter 2:24 tells us that by His stripes we were healed. We focus on the end of this verse but healing is a the result of being righteous. This is an identity scripture.
“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24
We are no longer sinners anymore, we are righteous and the fruit of being in this position is healing. This is our identity. There are some amazing videos available on YouTube by Chad Gonzales on this subject.