Independent Identity
Galatians 2:20 Amplified Bible (AMP)
20 I have been crucified with Christ [in Him I have shared His crucifixion]; it is no longer I who live, but Christ (the Messiah) lives in me; and the life I now live in the body I live by faith in (by adherence to and reliance on and complete trust in) the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
My two young people are in a phase in life where they are finding themselves. My son and I were having a conversation some time ago and something came out during the course of that conversation that made me question his walk with God, and what turn his faith had taken. When I asked him what was going on with him, he said that I was just upset because although I had taught him and raised him in the church, I had taught them prayer, fasting and reading of the word and living Holy by example; that he had chosen to investigate some things and believe differently than me. He has developed an independent identity. He has chosen his own path and his own way of thinking and believing as most of our children do at one time or another, but the thing that calmed all that was within me, was the Word of the Lord over my son, when he was six years old, that told me this day, would come and he would encounter a place where he would not know about this “Jesus thing,” but for me not to worry, just to pray, because God already had a hook in his jaw.” I stand on those words, because the Spirit of God is truth and the Word of God must accomplish what they were sent forth to do.
Many of us are just like my son, when we encountered Christ initially we believed and we identified with Him. For most of us, you could not tell where Christ began and we ended, but then, something happened in our lives or we wanted something and we sowed to our flesh and it felt good, or we started hanging with people who began to influence us right out of our Godly identity and into theirs and we became independent of God, we began to apply our reasoning and our thought, we began to feed the flesh and give into it instead of invoking the spirit of God to be in control. We started to make excuses, and say things like “God knows my heart, He created me, He knows I am a work in progress, or the Bible was not written for today, we need to not be so spiritually deep that we are no earthly good.” Where do we get this stuff? From people, we have chosen to identify with more than God and His word; because if our focus was identifying with God through Christ we would be dying to the flesh daily and working on what we knew that was displeasing to God, instead of excusing it. We would make the Word of God the authority in our lives and the will of God our daily mission. But instead we have become like the sons of Sceva, wanting to play the part but not having the power or the identification that carries any weight (Acts 19:13-16).
How will the world ever know that we are different, if our identity is the same as theirs? How can we impact those who are lost when we are speaking, acting and thinking as they do? In Romans 8:13 it says, “ For if you live according to [the dictates of] the flesh, you will surely die. But if through the power of the [Holy] Spirit you are [habitually] putting to death (making extinct, deadening) the [evil] deeds prompted by the body, you shall [really and genuinely] live forever.” Having an independent identity you will have the your mind and not the mind of Christ which will cause and produce your actions instead ones pleasing and acceptable unto to God, isn’t that a part of our reasonable service unto Him, to die daily, so that He may live in us and through us, so that men may see us and glorify God, so that men can identify that there is something about us that is different and it is Jesus!
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