When we know who we are in Christ everything Changes

When we know who we are in Christ everything Changes

We get to throw off old identities – I’m lousy, I’m weak, ‘im bad, I would say this is part of the Chrstian experience as we struggle to find our self image in God. This is a real struggle but equally true of you is the fact that God’s almighty power dwells within you.

God shows us our weakness that apart from Him we really can do nothing this is a good thing. We know we cannot do anything apart from Him but we can do all things through His strength in us.

We have something better, something more than just that. We get to trade of the old identities and pick up a new identity in Christ. Our low self esteem – this usually results because we have been exposed to the conviction of sin through the Holy Spirits work but the problem is that the condemnation and accusation of devils tend to acerbate the problem. Through His cross we can think of ourselves through Jesus death and resurrection. We can have a new Identity

Some are going through times of trial where your weaknesses are revealed– in these times we need to know that His grace is more than sufficient, we need to focus on His grace, and His strength. While you know how weak you are, we also need to know the Strength of Christ that will rise up and upon you in your weaknesses. His grace is made perfect in your weaknesses. Refrain from seeing yourself only in your weaknesses, ask the holy Spirit to renew your mind and open your spiritual eyes as to who you are to Him – Ask Him to show you the more than sufficient strength that Christ provides, that you are His beloved, to show you who you are to Him and all that He can do through you.

He has provided the death of Christ that we can bury our old selves, so that we can give ourselves un-reservedly and passionately to Christ. He has risen from the dead so that you can be named as a Child of god.

 God will chastise you, convict you, correct you and warn you. But not make you feel worthless, lifeless, spiritless, faithless. These are from the evil one. You are bad, you are filthy, you are worthless, good for nothing destroys your spirit. Your Spirit, the born again spirit man inside of you is the very thing you need to use to glorify God. Why would God want to destroy the very Spirit which he made alive, to defile the very temple which He wants to dwell in, shine in and show himself to the world through?

The Holy Spirit and God’s word says to you – you are loved, you are mighty, you are strong, yes you can with my help. I will change you, I will purify you, I will empower you. The things about you you cannot do, I will do for you. The Holy Spirit always brings the grace to do what we ourselves cannot on our own.

We get a new identity in Christ. Believe in your new God given identity. Yes I am your beloved, yes I am born again, by His blood by His sacrifice, Yes I can glorify God. Believe these things He has done for you through the cross. Keep them in your heart and mind, treasure them in your heart and speak about them continually especially if you don’t know that God loves you, in moments where He seems far away. Put off the old man and put on the new man in Christ! We can find new confidence in a new identity in Christ! Our mentality and thinking must shift to build our identity upon the one foundation stone of Christ and His cross, in other words we must begin to think of ourselves through the lens of Christ and His cross what He has done for us.

Yes we cannot do the good we want to do the evil we do not want to do, we keep on doing. But its is not the ‘us’ who does it, but it is the power of ‘sin’ which dwells in our flesh in our bodies. Paul made that distinction, he said I, the Spirit man, the born again believer want to do good in my heart. You are not evil you are born again you struggle with evil in your flesh but the way to overcome it is not to focus on it, it is to focus on what Christ has done for you and who you are through Him to take on Christ Himself and receive more grace to become like Jesus through Jesus.

The Holy Spirit comes to convict of sin, of righteousness and Christ’s victory over the evil one. We are righteous because Christ has shed His blood, because we can stand in His virtue before a holy God, not of your own righteousness it is the righteousness of Christ that we have. If you believe in the Gospel in Jesus as your righteousness correctly, the Holy Spirit comes to speak His righteousness over you and tell you that you are forgiven, loved and righteous as His Child. I want to say that that- that same righteousness of Jesus lives in you.

Our attitudes must change if we want to see His kingdom come in us – righteous, peace and joy through the holy spirit through the renewing of our minds. ‘ I beseech you brothers by the mercies of God that you offer yourselves up as a pleasing sacrifice unto God, which is your act of acceptable worship, do not be conformed any longer to the world, but be transformed through the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is His good, acceptable and perfect will’. Be changed through thinking differently, thinking of yourself through the lens of the gospel.

What I see in the bible are a whole lot of verses trying to tell us to think like we are kings, priests, royal priesthoods, children, created in the image of true righteousness and holiness– now are we going to think according to Christ or what we think is right?

We are sinners but we have been forgiven and now we are children of God. Now we must think of ourselves as His Children. We are dead to sin, alive in Him. Its is not a boasting in fleshliness or self confidence. If we know that all these things we can only have through the grace of God, as gifts to us, we will be humble yet strong in confidence in Him. We need to revive faith In Christ and faith in what he has already done for you and in you so that you can begin to be transformed.

Christ and The Father – ‘you are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.’ The revelation of who we are is unfolded as we give ourselves to God in surrender and baptism unto death. When He reveals our identity to us, when we seek Him, that revelation from God, revealing our identities as His children, that revelation releases faith to do what we cannot do. To Gideon, God spoke and called him a ‘mighty warrior’, David – ‘the next king of Israel’. Our Spiritual Supernatural identity is more important than anything else. When we find who we are in Christ and our mission, place, His gifting and our work in His great Commission, something powerful happens we can do it through His empowerment of His Spirit.

They that know their God shall do exploits. You have access to the most high through His blood. We can all Know God through the cross.

Let us not drag the spirit recreated by God through the dirt and call ourselves sinners and then wonder where is the power to defeat sin. The power to defeat sin is in identity. If you destroy identity, there is no power left to live a Godly life.

“Several paradigm shifts take place in our hearts as we embrace our promotion from servants to friends (John 15:14-15).

First, what we know changes, as we gain access to the heart of the Father. His heart is the greatest resource of information we need to function successfully in all of life. Jesus laid the price of our access to the Father, therefore granting us the freedom that comes from the truth we gain through that unlimited knowledge of His heart. Liberty is found in this phase of the promotion. 

Second, our experience changes. Encounters with God as an intimate are quite different from those of a servant. His heartbeat becomes our heartbeat as we celebrate the shift in our own desires. The realm of His presence becomes our greatest inheritance, and divine encounters our greatest memories. Personal transformation is the only possible result from these supernatural experiences.

Third, our function in life radically changes. Instead of working for Him, we work with Him. We work not for His favor but from His favor. In this position, He entrusts us with more of His power, and we are naturally changed into His likeness more and more. 

Fourthly, our identity is radically transformed. Our identity sets the tone for all we do and become. Christians who live out of who they really are cannot be crippled by the opinions of others. They don't work to fit into other people's expectations but burn with the realization of who their Father says they are.”

Bill Johnson – dreaming with God.