Please Note ~ As you progress through each affirmation, please have your Bible with you, and read each passage as you go, this way you might experience each word to its fullest extent. I recognize the readability is affected by all the references, but the reason for them is to point you back to the Bible for your own benefit.
“My true identity is a mystery that can only be revealed to me by daily obedience to Jesus Christ.”
This affirmation may sound odd, but it is something I have to remind myself often. The reason I don't fully know my true identity is because of Proverbs 27:19 and Jeremiah 17:9-10.
So a man’s heart reveals the man.
When you put those two verses together, you realize that your heart shows you your true self, but Jeremiah 17:9 says that “the heart is deceitful”, or misleading, “and very wicked”, and we don't know it, even though it is a part of us!
The word 'identity' means: "sameness, oneness, or state of being the same; the distinguishing character or personality of the individual; the condition of being the same with something described or asserted."
2 Corinthians 5:1-5 describes the physical body as a “tent”; the house in which the inner-man, or the soul, dwells. The heart and the mind are the things in us that only God can see (1 Sam. 16:7, 2 Cor. 2:11). We have to remind ourselves that God originally created us after His image and likeness (Gen. 1:26), therefore, making us holy but because of the fall of mankind along with our own sins that follow as a result, we now have indwelling sin that controls our minds, hearts, and souls (Rom. 7:18-24).
Several verses show us that God does not want our identity to come from this world (James 4:4, 1 John 2:15-17, Rom. 12:2). It is because the “god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4) or the father of lies (John 8:44), wants to mold us into his image, just like God did (Gen. 2:7) and “blow his breath” into our souls by becoming the “prince of the power of the air”, (Eph. 2:2). This makes us individuals and “children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3), rather than being “adopted into the family of faith” (Gal. 4:3-7).
The dictionary defines 'individual' as "inseparable; being as an individual or existing as an indivisible whole". As the Devil is also called the “father of lies” (John 8:44), we shouldn’t underestimate the craftiness of the serpent (Gen. 3:1) because the war of life is for our souls (1 Pet. 2:11). Therefore, his aim is to make us “individuals” or “inseparable to his spirit” (1 John 4:2-3) and indivisible from “spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12), because these bad spirits seek to inhabit our souls and make us act according to their desires (Gal. 5:17), rather than having our identities restored and revived in Christ (Col. 3:3, Eph. 4:23-24).
“Part of a person’s sense of who they are comes from their social or group identity. The groups they belong to reinforce their beliefs and values and give them validation and self-esteem” (Hemmings, 2018, p. 146).
As mentioned above, only part of someone’s identity is from what their social or group identity gives them. The social groups we “belong to” only identify and label the flesh or “tent”. However, all souls belong to God and “in His hand is the life of every living thing” (Ezek. 18:4, Job 12:11). It is not my goal to tell you what groups you belong to, but rather for us to have an “open ear” (Matt. 13: 23, Prov. 20:12) to hear the voice of God (Heb. 3:13-15) so that we can feed and clothe the inner self (2 Cor. 4:16) with the Word of God, thus revealing a much better version of ourselves rather than letting the world define our identities.
Daily obedience to the Word of God (James 1:22-25), seeking after Him as Solomon sought after wisdom (Prov. 8:17, Matt. 6:33) and seeing the Scriptures as a necessity for the life and salvation of the soul (Matt. 4:4, 2 Tim. 3:16-17) are good steps to follow in order to find our true identities in Christ.
More to come,
Michael Apa
(and thank you to my most beautiful wife, Meliah, for all her hard work on the web design and social media graphics)
Works Cited
Hemmings, Jo, et al. “Psychology In The Real World.” How Psychology Works: Applied Psychology Visually Explained, DK, New York, NY, 2018, pp. 146–147.
