It Starts Small

Yesterday I implored readers to consider the most insidious net, the worst trap of all shame. Shame is satan’s weapon for keeping our eyes on the ground. Shame is an identity we keep when we can not let go of our past sufferings or past wrongdoings. We keep our old nature’s identity. Jesus said, when you receive me, you are given a new name in heaven and a new identity, but until you embrace your new identity, your new creation in me, you will forever be stuck in your walk. So often, so many Christians are stuck and they do not know why. I believe it is holding on to what you were. You can not progress forward in your walk because every minute of the day you are reliving, and trying to rewrite your past.

Your past is just that, your past. When Christ is your all, you are who he says you are. If you have throw that cloak of shame in the fire you might experience what I experienced, an identity crisis. When I realized that for 20 years I had been identifying as a sinner and a victim, and that I was a new creation, not those things, I hit a moment of an identity crisis. Most everyone knows the phrase from Alice in Wonderland when the caterpillar says, “Who are you?”

Who are you?

I could identify as my name. I could identify as a mom. I could identify as a wife. A sister. A friend. A daughter. But none of those could replace my old identity. Those were more like responsibility titles. They did not say who I was. I prayed one morning that God would open my heart to revealing who I was. At the moment I felt like I was a someone caught between two worlds. I had tossed my old identity in the trash and was standing at the counter to walk into a new world being asked who are you. Prove who you are.

Who do you see? The What or the Who?

When you look at yourself in the mirror do you see yourself as:

A sinner or someone who is righteous?
Someone who is unworthy or worthy?
Someone who is bold or timid?

The answers come down to either you are looking at the WHO or the what. All of our identity is built on feelings, emotions, experiences, and what people have said about us. This was never what God had intended for us. When the fall happen in the garden, Adam became self-conscious and started defining his identity by what he saw instead of who God said he was. This changed when Jesus came.

New Identity

If you have received Christ as your Savior, your identity changed from the old sinful nature to Christ. In Christ, the very life and nature of Jesus is living inside of you. It is the understanding that who you are as a person is no longer dependant on anything you do or have done, but on who Christ is in you and what he has done on the cross.

When we were saved, we were not changed to a better person by God. Our old sinful nature was nailed to the cross, we were cleansed of our sin with His blood and he came and dwells in us through the Spirit.

⁶ For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, Romans 6:6

To fully understand this we need to examine how we were created. We were created with a body (that is obvious), and soul (this is the seat of emotions, personality, and will) and a spirit.

²³ Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. And may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thessalonians 5:23

The moment we were saved, our spirit became one with the Spirit of God.

¹⁷ But anyone joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. 1 Corinthians 6:17

While we are perfect in our spirit with God, our minds and will still have to be changed and worked on. This is the transformation Jesus speaks about. Why, then is it so hard to allow the changes to our self-will and mind? Why are our hearts still carrying the old heart?

Because from the moment we were born, we have been walking, talking, and acting as the world would. Our decision making, behaviors, and wisdom have been deep rooted in the world’s wisdom. We have a lot of wrong beliefs, wrong thought patterns, and weaknesses that do not line up with how God things and sees you.

The Journey Begins

When we identify, that what we want in God and what he wants to work in us are not going to be accomplished with keeping our old identity, I believe this is where the discipleship journey begins. We can not hear or see God with our old ears and eyes. We can not expect to accomplish anything through Him doing the same old things and thinking the same old way.

² Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God. Romans 12:2

The moment we let God begin to change the way we think and who He is, woy we are, and how you see the world around you is the moment you begin to live out a new life. Our actions are driven by how we think and what we believe. If you believe a lie about who you are and how God sees you, you will live that lie out.

The reason we are living sinful lives is because we are not trying to be righteous. We are trying to live right, but not righteous. This is a result of not believing, trusting, or understanding what Jesus has done for us. We live with our old nature eyes of just seeing ourselves as sinners. We do not see our own righteousness in Christ. We let that old nature define who we are (shame).

New Life, New Identity

True freedom from the bondage of our old nature is about knowing truth, not trying harder. You can try as hard as you possibly can, but you will still do the same old things, say the same old things, be the same old you.

³¹ Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you continue in my word, you really are my disciples. ³² You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
John 8:31-32

The Christian life is not about doing more to improve yourself to be like Jesus. The Christian life is about knowing the”WHO” that is inside you and the result is giving yourself over to Him. Surrendering and yield to Him so that He can make you like Him.

It was explained to me like this: We do not do to be. We are so we do.

Is that ringing anmy winner winner chicken dinner bells to you?

Have you ever opened a verse and thought to yourself, I wished I could be liek that? How do I be like that?

How about this verse:

⁴⁸ Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:48

We do something dumb. We try to take this verse and turn it into something we do. We think to ourselves I am supposed to try and live a perfect life or Holy and maybe then I can measure up. Trying to be perfect and holy as our Heavenly Father is an automatic fail before you begin. Your righteous deeds could never stand up before His standard of perfection and holiness. Seems like a doom and gloom? Well it should be.

Why? Because what we fail to grasp is that Jesus lives inside of us and there nothing more we have to do to be perfect or holy like the Father except to become aware of who He is inside of us! Jesus is our perfection and holiness. We are to just be and let Him work Himself into us. We do not have to try and be, we just have to be. No trying. It is already there. We just have to surrender and yield ourselves to the Spirit.

Christ is our Identity

You have probably heard this analogy. Imagine you are in a courtroom. The prosecutor is standing before our Heavenly Father who is Judge, and accusing us of all our sins for that day. He is accusing you of not being good enough, faithful enough, trusting enough, and on and on he goes.

When the list is complete, a man stands next to you and says hold up your Honor. I have a deed here that says this man or woman has been bought and paid for. I claim him or her as mine. That man is Jesus! Jesus stands before His Father as our mediator and defender. He is standing as the one who fulfilled the law perfectly and was faithful to the end. He has not one blemish or mistake.

Our judge, our Heavenly Father looks down upon us and Jesus next to you and sees that we have become one with Him and gives a resounding NO GUILTY!

Everything CHrist accomplished on the cross get attributed to you for free of charge. When our Father looks down upon us he sees Christ in us and therefore we are blameless, holy, righteous, etc. What Christ is we are. The enemy, the sinister minister, the accuser has nothing he can condemn us with to our Heavenly Father. His goal is to try and make us take on that old identity by accusing us and getting you to judge your own self as guilty based off of what you see, what you did, or how you feel. If he can get you to look outside of Christ, he can get you to think and believe his accusations and you allow him to create a different false identity.

This is the cycle of sin in our lives. If we continue to see outside of Christ, we will always fall short and the enemy will just continue to accuse us.

²⁰ 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 2:10

² In this regard, it is required that managers be found faithful. ³ It is of little importance to me that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I don’t even judge myself. 1 Corinthians 4:2-3

Let us consider and ask ourselves:

If it is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me, WHY would I ever hang onto my old self?

WHY would I identify as a sinner when Christ is righteous in me?

WHY would I judge myself in regard to being faithful?

Christ is made perfect inside of every spiritually born again believer. It does not matter what we have said or done or feel, Christ never changes in us.

How do we live out our new identity?

I am sure you are hoping I have a 3 step process to share with you, but I honestly do not. It is not how it works in the kingdom of God. John 8:32 says, and the truth will set you free. All I can really give is a set of truths to shine the light on what it actually looks like to have an identity in Christ. Knowing truth is where freedom comes to walk out a life in Christ.

Let us say that this morning we messed up and sinned again in the same area for a third time this week. You can pout. You can get frustrated. You can believe you are a sinner who can not get free of sin. or……

⁶ For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, Romans 6:6

⁸ Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, Romans 6:8

⁷ since a person who has died is freed from sin. Romans 6:7

Did you pick up that these are written in past tense. You were crucified…. You died…. Who has died….

You are not being crucified. You are not dying. You are not in bondgae.

You have and it is finished in your life.

Your prayer goes something like this:

God, I am a sinner. Please help me get free of this sin. I’m an awful person, please cleanse me.

But what if you prayed like this:

Jesus, my mistakes do not define who I am. Thank you that you have set me free from the power of sin and that I am the righteousness of God in you.

DO you see the difference in the two prayers? One is all about me, me, me. The other is all about Him, Him, Him. This doesn’t mean you do not confess your sin, but you identify not as the sin, but He that is in you.

We are to present ourselves to Jesus. Al our Heavenly Father wants from us is intimately know who he is and be present to Him. He is less concerned about our sin and more concerned with building a lasting relationship of trust. This all starts by simply having a relationship with Jesus. We learn to become captivated by Him and fall in love with who he is. The more we yield the more we give every part of our lives to Him. He begins to live out His life through us.

Present Yourself

¹³ And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. Romans 6:13

¹⁶ Don’t you know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one you obey—either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? Romans 6:16

Whatever you present yourself to, is what you become obedient to.

The greek word for present is paristemi. It mean to stand beside or become available to. We are to just stand with God and make ourselves available to Him and HIM ONLY. We constantly fall to sin, because we make ourselves available to it. We do not turn away from it, we stand with it and next to it.

You only stand with that which you trust. You can not fully trust and stand with God if you do not know who He is. Sure, you know of Him, but until you know who he is, you will not stand fully with Him.

To be fully present, you have to stop trying to fix yourself. Your effort is vain, because we can not fix what is wrong with us. Yes, you read that right. We need to stop trying to be more holy, putting more demands upon ourselves, and following a bunch of old laws that will never make us righteous. Just stop trying and just be available.

“I’ve tried everything and no matter how hard I try, I still keep falling back into sin”

Does this ring true for you? The very thing we do is the very thing that keeps us in bondage. This does not mean you live carelessly, free and do whatever you want. The way to freedom is through Christ. We are dead and have no ability in us, no matter how hard we try, to live a life of righteousness on our own. When you get this idea you can self-will your way out of sin and bondage, you are in fact making it worse because when you say you can, you are relying on yourself to carry out the works of Christ by yourself. Proverbs says lean not unto yourself, but upon God.

All our flesh knows to do is sin. It was born in this world. It can not be self-willed to stop. If you are truly serious about being transformed, stop trying to fix yourself and just make yourself available.

I cannot explain how it works. The minute I quit trying and just started making myself available, something started to change within me. I started challenging all the false religion I believed. I started focusing on Christ and His life and allowing Him to work into me, through the His Spirit, fruit I can not explain or reproduce on my own. The way I saw myself and the world around me began to change.

I know this is a lot to squeeze into one post and it is long. I pray you embrace your new identity in Christ. You no longer have to toil or try in vain. You just have to present yourself and he does all the hard work.