Who Do You Think You Are?

 Last Friday I had the opportunity to visit with some of the men who live at the Manor.  I take time often just to sit and listen to them talk about what they are dealing with and the chaos they live in thanks to others who live there.  Some just can’t wait to get out of that place and when you talk about how long they have lived there, it’s always been too long.  So, when I met with Larry this past Friday, something really special happened.  We talked about his work situation, the fact that he will bike wherever he needs to go…even when he has too many beers.  Larry can come out with amazing insights from the Bible too and I’ve discovered that Larry knows Jesus.  So, on this day I put my hand on his shoulder and prayed for him.  Afterwards, I said, Larry, I want you to pray for me.  As he prayed, he said, “LORD, help Jack to see it’s not what he does for you, it’s about what you created him to be.” It was a moment for sure and a special reminder that God gave me through Larry!

The root of our identity as image-bearers of God needs to be addressed.  We were created in His likeness to reflect His goodness and love.  It was lost all the way back with Adam and we need to reclaim our identity!

Why is it so important for us to continue to revisit this theme?

·         You really can’t live in the fullness of who you have been created to be until you really know who you are.

·         If you aren’t fully persuaded of your identity in Jesus, criticism can really devastate you!

·          You’ll be able to gauge by how you respond to criticism in determining where you are at.  Do you react or respond.  When we react, it is usually an unfiltered knee-jerk, fast response.  It’s of the flesh and not the Spirit. Responding with grace takes incredible patience.  It can only comes from a deep rooted faith and rested identity in Christ.

·         Take a moment to think of what is typical of you if you are honest with yourself

·         I believe when you aren’t strong in knowing your purpose, your value, you take everything someone says about you personally or completely at face value and allow it to shape your identity. The opposite of this is the ability to step back from a situation when you are being attacked.  It will allow you to process and say, “ok, where is this really coming from.” 

      Have any of you read the story “You Are Special” by Max Lucado.  Read it with your children because we need to start this focus on how God truly sees us early in life.

Ephesians 4:20-22

That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

These truths need to be written on our hearts!  We need to take off the mask, strip away everything that is part of defining us by the world’s standards.  It is a process of retraining our minds through the lens of Scripture.

I want to share about some truths that spill out of your identity in Ephesians.

ONCE                                                                                                                                    NOW

	YOUR  POSITION v1-6
All you thought about was gratifying yourself: the WIIFM syndrome, I want it now, I wanted it yesterday.  You fill in the blank We were dead in sin. We were deserving of wrath, we were deserving of nothing. We were consumed by Black Friday consumerism	God RAISED you up, you are seated in heavenly places.   YOU have a new perspective.  God is giving you a window to see things from an eternal perspective…. The question we need to ask ourselves is this, “ In the light of eternity, how much  am I going to place on this situation? Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good.  He came to make dead people come to life!
	YOUR INHERITANCE v12,13
You were so far away from God in your thoughts, your decisions, You were excluded – left out You were foreigners – you didn’t have a claim to anything, without God, without hope.	You have been brought near to the Father by the blood of Jesus, we can come boldly into His presence. Included in the covenant of promise – a promise of blessing, a promise of redemption.  He is the God who redeems our life with good things! Fellow citizens of God’s people
	YOUR BLESSING v7,14
I have to make it happen.  If anything good happens in my life, I made it happen I am separate from Christ, there is no blessing.	He wants you to tangibly experience the incomparable riches of His grace He is our peace, our calm in the midst of life’s storms, our refuge. We have access to the Father by the Spirit.
	YOUR FAMILY v19-21
I have to prove that I’m somebody.  It’s about my resume, my network of friends, It’s me being me, a good human being, trying to prove I belong.	This is not just an individual thing.  We are being built together to become a dwelling where God lives by His Spirit.  I experienced a powerful reminder of this while I visited the wailing wall in Jerusalem and stood at the amazing foundation Peace and harmony in our relationships.  No one is superior.  The ground is completely level at the cross
	YOUR DESTINY v8-10, 21,22
Following the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.	I am saved, I’m God’s handiwork I have been set up by God to do good works for His kingdom. I am dwelling place in which God lives by his Spirit.

When we wrap our hearts and minds around this, our attitude, our outlook can significantly change.

My personal journey towards my identity in Christ.

My identity as a Christian was very much wrapped up in what I did.  I really took pride in doing my devotions, I was pretty disciplined when it came to doing my devotions.  I did Bible lessons through the Mailbox Bible Club when I was younger.  As a teenager, I was active in the “Christian Service Brigade” and earned the “Herald of Christ”.    I sensed a call to full time ministry when I was 17 and I was off and running to become a pastor.  I went through four years of Bible School to get my BRE and another two years to  get my MRE for good measure.  I thought I was ready for God to use me.  I didn’t say it, but I definitely thought it.  I jumped through all the “hoops” and I was ready.  I put out my resume…everywhere, but no one wall calling, no one was interested in me.  It was devastating honestly to the point that I gave up on being a pastor.  I honestly thought that I heard God wrong so I focused on teaching.  I had given up so much on being a pastor that when the church I was attending and serving at posted a youth pastor position, I didn’t even apply.  However, it was at this moment that God took over and the pastor invited me out to lunch and then asked me to become the youth pastor.

So, what’s the lesson?

My, being a pastor, would not come about because of my ministry experience, my education, my training.  It had everything to do with Him and continues to have everything to do with Him.  It means I actively need to be listening to His voice, finding my purpose, my identity, my calling in Him, in what He has done for me, what He has created me to be, just like Larry said.

Christian discipleship is a process of paying more and more attention to God’s righteousness and less and less attention to our own; finding the meaning of our lives not by probing our moods and motives but by believing in God’s will and purposes; making a map of the faithfulness of God, not charting the rise and fall of our own enthusiasms.    Eugene Peterson

Will The Real YOU please stand up!

So, the other week, I lost my wallet and man it was a sick feeling.  I searched high and low for it in my house, retraced my steps and revisited the places that I went.  I went online right away to check if my cc had been compromised.  It wasn’t, so that was good.  I prayed about it too and still nothing and then hours later, I rechecked the closet again and there it was at the bottom on top of a pair of shoes…it had fallen out of my jacket.

Amidst all the franticness, one of my kids says to me, “Dad, are you ever worried that someone could steal your identity?”

When we think about our identity as followers of Jesus, there is always someone who is right there ready to strip us of any confidence, any sense of assurance of who we are as God’s children and that is of course, the enemy, Satan.  He comes to steal, kill and destroy our identity . So, it is absolutely important that we don’t lose it.  Here’s the truth though, he can’t take it away from us, but He can sure do his best to make us feel like we’ve lost it.

When we think about our physical identity, it is often right here, (point to pocket) but spiritually I want you to focus on your identity as a believer here (point to head and heart).

 Proverbs 23:7 As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

Proverbs 4:23 “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”

Jesus came to give us life more abundant, life to the full, a life free from comparison, a life free from titles or status.  When we are IN CHRIST, we have this incredible freedom to be who we are, who God created us to be.

Don’t let the Enemy steal your IDENTITY

You have been REBORN FOR THIS

3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. 4 Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. 6 So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. 7 He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. 8 He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.   Ephesians 1:3-7 NLT    showered (lavished)

As followers of Jesus, it is not what we do that determines who we are;  it is what we believe that determines who we become  AND that is why it is so important that we have a rock solid understanding of who God says we are!

·         Blessed with every spiritual blessing, adoption, brought into His family and seen as holy

·         You are loved, chosen, you are without fault before you even took a breath.   

It was all God’s initiative, it was all through the finished work of Jesus and here’s the amazing thing.  He did all of this and proclaimed this over you because HE WANTED TO DO it, You give HIM great pleasure.

One of the biggest lies that the enemy works on you early in your relationship with God is your assurance of knowing that you are a child of God.  I certainly struggled in this area and he loves to create doubt, confusion and even manipulate what others say to you. 

So, Paul wants to establish a firm foundation for this young church in making it absolutely clear about what God has done for them.  I want to do the same by reiterating the wealth of our resources and identity as followers of Jesus. 

Practically, we need to keep our identity in front of us and if that means on the mirror in our washroom or on the fridge so that we allow these truths to really sink in!

Don’t get STUCK on your SELF

Our own sense of SELF gets in the way or as the Bible describes it, our FLESH.

A lot of us gain our sense of identity based on our family background, work, even human relationships.  In our social media crazed world, we can easily attach our personal worth and let it rise or fall based on the # of likes we receive on our pictures or posts. 

GET ROOTED IN CHRIST

Ephesians 1:11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

In Christ we are SIGNIFICANT, it is the purpose of his well, In Christ,

Our identity is SECURE, we are included. In Christ, the HS is your guarantee, you are God’s possession.  He is saying, I OWN YOU.

We are SUFFICIENT, we are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit

It was God the Father who said of Jesus “this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” before He even began his public ministry.

Your identity in Christ is so important to grasp because it will shape the motives for why you serve. 

Identity precedes activity – who I am in Christ comes before what I do for Christ. Steven Furtick

And the flipside, without Christ we can do nothing, without Christ, we will always fall short and without Christ, we will continue to doubt ourselves.

Don’t sell yourself SHORT

ASK FOR MORE

Check out The BIG ASK!  Going for it with our prayer requests

16 I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms

First and foremost we need to be able to be rich in confidence and assurance of who we are and what is ours in order to bring wisdom, insight, hope and meaning to others.

•             The Spirit of wisdom- insight into the true nature of things, the ability to make decisions that reflect the heart of God

Can you identify a time when God gave you the Spirit of wisdom about yourself or a situation that God placed you in?

•        The Spirit of revelation – the communication of God to your soul, it is an uncovering, the ability to unveil.  It is the spiritual power of insight is only because of the gift of the Holy Spirit.  This is where prayer can become very exciting and bring incredible confirmation into people’s lives.

A simple prayer I pray that incorporates this is,  “Father, give me eyes to see what You want me to see and ears to hear what You want me to hear.”

Can you identify a time when God gave you a Spirit of revelation into your own life or another person’s life or a time when the love of God was revealed to you in a unique way?

This summer, our daughter Addi was accepted with YWAM, a 6 month youth discipleship training and missions ministry.  She worked hard at roofing alongside her brothers and me as well as doing her landscaping job.  Sharon and my mom also came alongside her to do fundraising through selling plants for the missions portion of her trip.  So, the first phase was due the other week and it was $3300- in total.  The amount she raised through working and fundraising was $3280 +$50- that just happened to be coming in that same day through another plant sale!  God is so good!!

Speaking about identity...fun fact for all my new friends at Crossings who made it to the end of my blog, I was the newspaper carrier of the month back in the day...1979, to be exact.  I actually kept that paper route for 7 years!!