How to develop clear identity.
Many people struggle with who they are and what their true identity is. As a matter of fact this is why so many young people join gangs or fall in with the “wrong crowd”, they are looking for an identity. For this reason people have done many things that they may even disdain personally, but the need for acceptance and desire to have a place to belong is a strong. everyone has asked the question at one point in their life of who they are, or where they really belong.
As a matter of fact, multitudes of professing Christians struggle with the feeling that somehow they have missed something and there must be something wrong with them since they don’t feel as though they fit in with either the church or the rest of the world. In this article we are going to explore what the Bible says about who we are in Christ and how to accept that new identity so that we can live the abundant life that the Bible talks about, and everyone desires to live.
The beginning of our understanding must come by knowing where we came from and where we are now. To understand this we must go all the way back to the beginning. Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” What does that have to do with who I am? To know who you are you must first know where you have come from and what got you to the point you were. The Bible clearly teaches that God made all things. On the sixth day God made man and gave him a name. That first man was named Adam, and Genesis 1:26a it says, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:”. God created man in His own image, not that we all look alike, but that we were created with three parts just like God. We were given a body, which is our physical consciousness, or how we relate to the world around us. We were given a soul, which is our self-conscious, our intellect, our will, and our emotions. The soul is how we know who we are, and relate to others. Thirdly, we were given at creation a spirit. This spirit is our God-conscious, and it is how we communicate to God, and how God communicates to us. The Bible then says in Genesis 2:7, “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” God put life into us with His own breath. Adam then, being the first man, was what you might call the head of the human race. All people are his descendents, he is your great- great- great-… … … …Grandpa.
The Bible tells us that all men were in Adam. How could that be? Well, think of your dad: if he had never have been born, then you wouldn’t have been born, either. You were in your dad in that way. In the same way, your child is in you, and their children, and all those children that will come after you. Because of that, the decisions you make have an impact on successive generations. The same is true of Adam, but because he was the first man, the decision he made had an impact on the whole human race. The decision he made was to commit the sin of disobedience to God. God had told them not to eat of the fruit of a certain tree in the garden. They were free to eat of everything else, but not that one tree. Read Genesis chapter three if you are unfamiliar with the account of what Adam did. God had given a consequence to Adam, prior to his decision, and told him that if he did eat of the tree he would surely die. We know according to the Bible that Adam and Eve both ate from that tree, and they did die, not physically or in their soul, but they died spiritually. Because of that spiritual death, they had to leave the Garden of Eden. They were no longer able to fellowship with God; the part of them that had been able was dead now. In that one decision, Adam ceased having three living parts, and now only had two parts to pass on to the children that would come after him. His body and his soul were all that were left, because his spirit was dead. This is what the Bible means when it says in Romans 5:12, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:” Because we were in Adam, as future children are in you, then his spiritual decision affected us all.
This is why God in His great mercy sent Jesus Christ. To give us a chance to become once again what God had intended us to be. So that we could be spiritually alive again. All men have the desire to be spiritually alive and will go to great lengths to try and feel alive, but without God who gave life to begin with it is impossible. So Jesus came to earth and took on the form of man, lived a sinless life and on the cross took our sin debt on himself. He died for our sin, just as God had decreed in the garden that the consequence of sin was death. Jesus Christ died for you, in your place, He was placed in the grave for you, and He triumphantly rose from the grave for you, to give you victory over death, hell, and the grave. This is the wonderful story of salvation: that Christ died for you. Because of Adam’s sin, you were born dead, but because of Christ’s sacrifice, you can be made alive again. It says in I Corinthians 15:21-22, “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” Jesus Christ became the second and last Adam; He became the head of all those who would accept Him. Just as Adam is the head of those who are physically born, Jesus is the head of those who are Spiritually born. All men are identified with one of these two. By birth you are automatically identified with Adam, but you can by choice be identified with Christ at the time of Salvation. So then while a man is lost, he has only one point of identification; once a man is saved, he now has two. He has the old identity, who he was in Adam, and he has the new identity, who he now is in Christ.
I Corinthians 15 goes on to explain to us in verses 45-49, “And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” God’s desire is for you to stop identifying with the old man, who you were in sin, and to start identifying with the new man, who you are in Christ. This is where many Christians find their difficulty, in finding their new identity.
Imagine that you are standing between two objects. On the one side of you is a dead and rotting corpse, and on the other side of you is Jesus Christ. You stand in the middle trying to decide which of these two you want to be identified with. In the past, you have always been identified with the corpse, but you didn’t know it at the time. Because of your past identity you are surprisingly comfortable being identified with the corpse. Now that you are saved, you find it disgusting, and vile, yet it still has a comforting remembrance to you. The corpse represents the old nature, who you were before salvation. The Bible says in Romans 6:2 “God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?”, again in Romans 6:11, “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”, and yet again in Romans 8:10, “And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” You see, God makes it clear that the old sinful nature is dead.
God gives us a great example of this in the account of Israel leaving Egypt. You remember the Children of Israel were slaves in Egypt for 400 years. They grew up identifying themselves as slaves. That is the only identity they knew. They acted like slaves, they thought like slaves, and they taught their children to act and think like slaves. But one day a man named Moses was sent from God. Moses told them that they were not intended to be slaves, and that God has something far more wonderful for them. God wanted them to be free! God had prepared a wonderful place for them, a promised land where milk and honey flowed freely. They couldn’t wait, because in their hearts, they wanted to be free. God showed them His mighty power in sending ten plagues on the Egyptians, and then by the power of God they were sent out of the only land they had ever known. They followed Moses through the Red Sea, and trusted the promises of God. Because of the plagues and the destruction of Egypt, they could not go back; they were now committed. Even if they wanted to go back they could not, they were in a sense dead to Egypt.
The Children of Israel walked from the Red Sea to the Jordan River, and God told them, now that you have trusted me and come out of Egypt it is time for you to trust me with one more thing. Cross this Jordan River and allow me to run your life. The children of Israel were scared. They decided to send twelve men across the river to spy it out and see what they should expect. When the ten men got back, two of them told about the great abundance that awaited them, and how God was going to provide for them. The other ten spies told about the giants that they saw, and how hard they thought it would be to live there because of the enemies they would face. God told the Children of Israel not to worry about the giants, if you will trust Me, I will drive them away and you won’t have to. Because of their unbelief, they decided not to cross over the river.
God was disappointed with their decision and because of the decision they made they spent 40 years walking around in a desert place called the wilderness of sin. It was not until all but two of the adults that had been alive at the decision not to cross the river, Joshua and Caleb, the two spies that saw what God wanted for them, had died that the Children of Israel were allowed to enter into the Promised Land at last.
The picture we see of the Children of Israel during these 40 years is exactly what we see in a person who is still standing between that rotten corpse of what they used to be and the promise of joy in Christ. Israel began to think about how good they had it back in Egypt: there were onions and garlic, they had homes and food. Yes, they were slaves, and were beaten and driven by their oppressors, but they didn’t have the burden of being in this wilderness. You see, they still thought like slaves because they had never fully yielded themselves to the whole plan of God. They still thought like slaves even though they weren’t slaves any longer. When a Christian is having an identity crisis, it is because he is still thinking like a slave, he is still thinking like he did when he was identified with the corpse of sin. That is why Romans 6 said to reckon yourself dead to sin. The word reckon means to count it to be so. In other words, you have to change your mind about who you are. Just like the children of Israel, if you continue to think like a slave, you will never inhabit the promises of God.
Romans 12:1-2 says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” These verses speak directly to the heart of the matter. God says that first of all that you are to present your body to God. Quit trying to decide what is acceptable to do with your body and let God determine that for you. Quit saying it is my body and I will do what I want. Instead, present your body to God as a living sacrifice, allowing God to do whatever He wants with it. God says here that to do this is only reasonable. It is not unreasonable for God to ask you to do this, just like it was not unreasonable for God to ask Israel to cross over the Jordan River.
The second part of this passage deals not with the body, but the soul. It is these two areas that comprise the old man. The soul you remember is made up of the intellect, the will, and the emotions. When the Bible speaks of the mind in these verses, it is speaking not of just your thinking, but also of your will. We often say, “I have made up my mind”. That means that my will is determined. God wants you to make one decision to follow Him, all decisions after that are only made in respect of the first to follow Christ. The problem is that many Christians have mistakenly believed that they can make a decision whether or not they want to follow Christ on each thing that comes up in life. God says we are to make only one decision: cross the river and don’t go back. Your confusion comes through trying to keep one foot in the wilderness and one in the Promised Land, but you can’t straddle the river of God’s will in your life. If you are going to live the victorious Christian life, there must come a point that you look at that rotting corpse that is the old nature and say, “It is time to bury you. I am not going to identify with you anymore.”
Jesus one day went to the country of the Gadareens, and as soon as He stepped off of the boat a maniac met Him. The man lived in the tombs among the dead; he cut himself and was often bound with chains to restrain him. He identified with death and when Jesus asked his name he replied, “My name is legion for we are many”, speaking of the demons that possessed him. He didn’t tell Jesus his real name, only the identity of his sin. This is what most people do in our day. Who are you? “I’m an alcoholic, I’m a drug addict, I’m a compulsive eater” You see, the devil and the world want you to find your identity in your sin. They even have told you that you can never be anything else. Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, you know. You have been conditioned to think like a slave, and you must learn to think like the new man who is free in Christ.
God gives us another picture of what it is like when we turn back to our old ways of sinning. The Bible says in 2 Peter 2:22, “But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.” Imagine the disgust you feel when you see a dog eating its own vomit. That is what God feels when He sees you, His child, return to your old sinful nature. We need to understand the truth that the old man is dead, and we are dead to it.
Galatians 2:20 says, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Notice what Paul says, “I” that is the “old I”, the old man, “am crucified with Christ” The old man that was dead in trespasses and sins, was nailed to the cross in the person of Christ. “Nevertheless, I live” that is the new I, the new man that is alive. Paul was saying that the old man is dead and I do not any longer identify with him, instead I now find my identity in the life of Christ. I am not what I was. I am not that dead rotting corpse of sin, and I will no longer choose to identify myself with him and his deeds.
This does not mean that I will be able to live a sinless life, but it means that I will not make sin the identifying mark in life. Instead, I will make Christ the identifying mark of my life. The secret of my new life is that it is not mine, it is Christ’s life in me. Colossians 3:1-3 says, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” My life is not on this earth and is not in sin any longer. It is now in heaven, and in Christ. The totality of this change affects every aspect of my life. It is just as the scripture says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
So what is my new Identity? It begins when I know that I have been changed, made new. Colossians 1:12-14 says, “Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:”. You see, my deliverance and transformation has already been accomplished in Christ and I am now translated into His kingdom and presence. The word translated means that God sees me differently now than He did before. Before I was an outsider, a lost man under the condemnation of sin and bound for Hell. Now my position has changed, I am now His child, an inhabitant of His kingdom, and a resident of heaven when I die.
Let’s examine some of these aspects of our new Identity. I am now God’s child. John 1:12 says, “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:”. When you accepted Christ, you became a member of a new family. You are no longer just a member of the sinful family of Adam, you are now adopted into God’s family. Romans 8:15 says, “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” When you got saved, your adoption into the Family of God gave you a new Father, and a new identity. In Galatians 4:4-7, Paul explains this by saying, “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.”. As a son of God you have received the nature of your new father. 2 Peter 1:4 says, “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”. This divine nature of our heavenly Father means that we have the ability to live this new life that we have. As His child, we are like Him. Just as a baby does not exhibit all the characteristics of his earthly father right away, neither do we exhibit all of God’s Characteristics right away, but as we grow in Christ we become more and more like Him.
As His child, when we do sin, God will discipline us, just as a loving father would, but we will still be His child. He gives us an unconditional love and acceptance as His child. It says in Hebrews 12:6, “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” The immaturity of a child focuses on the discipline mentioned here, but a more mature look at this sees the great blessings. First, the fact of God’s discipline shows His love for us. It says whom the Lord loves, God does not discipline us out of hate or resentment, only out of love for us. Second, in this verse we see that the purpose of God’s discipline is to restore us to a right relationship with Him so that we can experience the fullness of His love for us. He longs to comfort us when we repent and turn back to Him. We see then that my new identity begins in the fact that I am His Child. The second aspect of this identity is also connected to this, and is that since I am God’s child, I am a joint heir with Jesus Christ of all that is God’s. I do not have to live with a “poor me” attitude any longer, my Father is rich. All that He possesses is now mine as I need it. He promises to provide everything I need. Psalm 50:10 says, “For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.” The New Testament goes on to say in Philippians 4:19, “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” What a wonderful thought to know that I am provided for by my heavenly Father. I don’t need to fear, or worry. I don’t need to run back to the old ways for my provision because I have all things in Christ. Paul said in Philippians 4:18, “But I have all, and abound: I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to God.” God used men to provide for Paul’s needs, but Paul knew that it was God that was providing it.
There are many things that we could look at as part of our new identity, but here we will only look at one more, in which is found in Revelation 1:5-6. It says, “And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.” This aspect of our new identity is that God has given us a new role within His Kingdom. Before we were saved, we were only serving ourselves. We were focused on ourselves and our lives were unproductive for anything of eternal value. Now we have been given a job to perform. We have been given not just acceptance into the Kingdom of God but also a position of service in God’s Kingdom. “You are not just welcome,” says God. “I have made you to rule and reign with me, and to minister to me in service for me.”
One of the reasons that many people do not fully embrace their new identity is that they have not realized the great honor of the position that God has given to them. Instead they continue to think like the slave they were, not the king they have become in Christ. They are torn between being a prince or a pauper. You may say, “If I am a king, where is my crown? Where is my kingdom and where are my servants?” The answer is that you are a king with Christ, not of your own kingdom, but within His Kingdom. It is His crown, but in Heaven, He will present you with a crown to wear. It is His Kingdom, but He has chosen to share with you the joy of ruling and reigning with Him. We are laying up the rewards that we will receive in Heaven with our service now. Just as Jesus was a servant on this earth, but King of Kings in Heaven, so, too, we are His servants while here on earth, but in Heaven we will be the kings over which He will rule. God has given you the opportunity to live a life that has eternal value, not just one that has eternal condemnation.
How then do we take on this new life? If you remember our example from earlier, on one side of you is a rotten stinking corpse, on the other side is Jesus Christ. How do we bury the old man and make our experience in life match our position in Christ? How do we live to Christ and die to sin? The answer to that is easier than you might think, and is found in the concept of 2 Corinthians 5:7, “(For we walk by faith, not by sight:)” The trouble with our walk to this point is that we have been trying to live the new life in the same way we lived the old life. The old life was dominated by our senses: those things that we could see, hear, smell, touch, and taste. Our new life is to be lived by faith, not by the senses of the flesh. Remember what it said in Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” You see, we are in the flesh, but we are to live by faith. This is not some mystical thing. Living by faith simply means to respond to life from God’s point of view, simply taking God at His Word and acting upon it.
Someone may ask, so how about the experiences I have already had? You have probably tried to live by faith only to fall and lose hope in it. Living by faith can be likened to a young child learning to ride a bike. They start out and fall, they get bumps and bruises and may even bleed a little, but they get back on the bike and try again and again, not because they have done it before, but because they have been told that they could do it, and have seen others do it, as well. Their experience isn’t what makes the difference: it is their belief. By continually acting on their belief, their experience finally matches their faith.
In his book “The Normal Christian life”, Watchman Nee gives the following illustration: “You probably know the illustration of Fact, Faith, and Experience walking along the top of a wall. Fact walked steadily on, turning neither to the right nor left and never looking behind. Faith followed, and all went well so long as he kept his eyes focused upon Fact; but as soon as he became concerned about Experience and turned to see how he was getting on, he lost his balance and tumbled off the wall, and poor old Experience fell down after him.”
You see, the issue of living by faith can be summed up in the idea of keeping your eyes on God’s word instead of the circumstances you are under. As we face decisions in our life, faith asks, “What does God show me to do in His Word?”, while the flesh says “What can I figure out?” Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” The flesh wants to see and feel how to respond; Faith responds as the Bible directs even when it doesn’t make sense to the flesh.
We live in a day when people operate almost exclusively on their feelings. Feelings will deceive you because feelings are usually based on our past way of thinking and training, which was according to the flesh. Your feelings are a result of your past, which was in death. You now are to operate on God’s feelings. When someone offends you, you are to forgive them, even when you don’t feel like it. When you do wrong, you are to repent and do right even when you don’t feel like it. You see our lives are now to operate by faith, and our feelings are to be put aside. This does not mean that they go away. It means that we choose not to act on them in the same way that we did when we were identified with the old man.
The Bible illustrates this in many ways. Consider Abraham, the father of faith. He was told by God to go to a country he had never seen. He didn’t even know where it was! Look what God told him in Genesis 12:1 “Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:” Notice the end of this verse, “unto a land that I will shew thee.” Abraham didn’t receive a map, or GPS coordinates, just the instruction to go. The flesh would say, “I can’t do this”, but faith said, “Obey God”. The Bible says in Romans 4:3, “For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.” We know that Abraham had no experience with this new endeavor, but he kept his eyes on the promises of God, and with faith, his experience finally matched his position with God. Walking by faith made the difference in his life.
To make our experience match our position, many times we must affirm our position instead of our feelings. Your flesh will always want to go against your spirit, and it will question the wisdom of living by faith. It is at this point that you must affirm your Biblical identity. You may pray, for instance, “Thank you, Father, that I was crucified with you on the cross (Rom. 6:6). I know it is no longer the old man who is living, but you are living in me as my very life (Gal. 2:20). I know that you are the one who has sanctified me in this matter (1 Cor. 1:30), and I am trusting in You as my righteousness. (1 Cor. 1:30).”
When there is an accusation in your heart that you are still the same as you once were, you must put your spiritual eyes on the fact of the Bible and lay claim to your new identity in Christ. It will not be easy, and you will still have times of struggle and problems as you learn to walk in your new identity in Christ. But as you learn to truly walk by faith, your experience will begin to affirm that the old man is indeed dead, and that the new man is life and peace in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Many people who experience the death of a close loved one, such as a spouse or a child, have a very difficult time with the grieving process. Many of them keep things close to them that are constant reminders of their loved ones. Some keep phone messages and tape recordings that they play back over and over just to hear the voice of the departed. The Bible says when Abraham’s wife Sarah died, he chose to bury her where he would not see her grave. It is normal to grieve over the death of a loved one, but to get through the grieving process, the dead must be put away from us. Many Christians cannot live a victorious life in Christ because they have never buried the old dead man out of their sight. They keep all the pictures and remembrances of their former self around to remind them. If you really want to embrace your new Identity in Christ, you need to finally bury the old man out of your sight: get rid of the keepsakes that you have protected all this time and surround yourself with life instead of death.
Don’t worry about what others will say. They will not understand because they still identify with death instead of life. 1 Peter 4:1-4 says, “Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries: Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you:”. Your identity is no longer found in the sins of the past, nor is it found in the opinions of others. It is found in the life of Jesus Christ living in you. Once you begin to live in this truth, your experience will indeed match your position, and you will find your true identity in Christ, becoming the person He already sees you to be.
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