Our True Identity
For as he (a man) thinks in his heart, so is he…!” Proverbs 23:7
Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life.” Proverbs 4:23 AMP
According to these scriptures it is self-evident that the outcome and success of our life and our ministry is determined by what we deeply believe in our hearts especially what we believe about God, about ourselves and about others!
Identity the Key
Almost all of the limitations we experience in leadership and relationship are as a result of our sense of identity, or the lack thereof. We can only ever be, and achieve what is consistent with our belief system and who we believe we truly are! The truth of the matter is that the failure or success of our life, ministry and relationships depends on our deep down identity or belief of who we really are. A strong and healthy identity is the key to being an effective leader, and having stable and healthy relationships.
A question I am frequently asked by pastors and ministers is: Canthe gospel of grace and peace alone influence people to the point of changing the way they relate to other people around them?
The Answer is: Absolutely!
The Gospel is Unique
There are a great many claims in the Gospel of Jesus Christ that sets Christianity apart from all other major religions of the world and makes our faith unique!!
One of the most important claims is that it declares that God through the work of Jesus Christ has done everything necessary to produce the results needed for our total inclusion in the identity of His son Jesus Christ!
Identity in Christ our Rock!
About two years ago God started speaking to me about seeing and finding my origin and identity in Him as the Rock that gave me birth! The passage of scripture that the Lord used was from Deuteronomy 32, a prophetic Psalm of Moses. In this Psalm Moses describes God as “the Rock”.
“…ascribe ye greatness unto our God. He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he. Deut 32:3 - 4 [KJV]
Right through the bible we find references to God and more specifically of Jesus as the Rock. Moses uses this description for God because a rock speaks of strength, durability, stability, dependability, steadfastness, and security.
- He is the rock of our Salvation!
- He is the rock of our Strength!
- He is the rock of our Refuge!
- He is the bedrock of our Faith!
- He is the rock of ages! and,
- He is the rock from which we were hewn!
-
So it is easy for us to identify with God as “the Rock” and we are able relate to Him as having all these attributes described above.
Then the Lord led me to read on to verse 18, “… Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee. Deut 32:18
My first thought was that God was drawing my attention to the fact that I had been unmindful of Him, and that I had forgotten Him, just as the people of Israel had done those many years ago! But the Lord very quickly assured me that even though it might be true that in many ways I have been unmindful of Him, and many times I have forgotten Him and just as the world today for the most part has forgotten Him and is unmindful of God the Rock that gave us birth, He has not forgotten us!
God wants us to know that even though we might have forgotten the Rock of our birth, the Rock has never forgotten us! This is the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! God refuses to be unmindful of man, and He has never forgotten us!
“Listen to me, you that pursue righteousness, you that seek the LORD. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.” Is 51:1 (NRSV)
So many people want to “find” God by fasting, prayer and an almost never-ending series of do’s and dont’s but this scripture says very simply “look” to the Rock from which you were hewn. Looking is very easy and effortless.
Peters Revelation
This is what I believe Peter saw in his revelation of Jesus!
This is the account of Jesus asking his disciples who men said he was,
Matt 16:13, “When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?
14 And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.
15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?
16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” KJV
Although others said that Jesus was various prophets, Simon’s answer was: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” So in essence the revelation that Simon got was that Jesus is “The Christ” and that his origin is of God! Because Simon says, “you are the Son of the living God”
17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
When Jesus replies to Simon here, He refers to his natural birth or origin, “Simon Barjona or Simon son of Jona”, and He goes on to say, “flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.”Essentially Jesus is saying to Simon, your fleshly birth or origin cannot reveal this truth to you. Only God can!
Then Jesus says to Simon, 18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter (petros), and upon this rock (petra) I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
When He says, “I say also unto thee” in the English it sounds like He is just saying “I say to you” but the word “also” in the Greek adds a far deeper meaning!
In the original language Jesus is saying; “…and I say also likewise unto you Simon as you have just said unto me!”
What I believe Jesus was saying to Peter is: “I say likewise back to you Simon, you also are Peter or Petros, Greek for “…a piece of rock”, “Petros” hewn from the Rock “Petra”
Jesus is showing Simon, that the revelation he had of Jesus and His origin is also a revelation of his (Peter’s) own origin. He is cut from the same rock, and has his origin in the living God just like Jesus.
Then He says; “…upon this Rock “Petra” I will build, put together, construct and confirm my church!
There is nothing that can establish, complete and distinguish a person better, than a revelation of his true identity revealed and restored in the person of Christ. Church is to be the place where people discover their origin in God, and find their true identity in Christ.
This reminds me of a true story I heard. In the 1980’s in Africa the fish eagle was an endangered species and everything possible was being done to try and rescue these birds from extinction. A Nature Conservation organisation in South Africa was given a fish eagle that had been in captivity for more that 10 years and had never learnt to fly. Their intention was to reintroduce this bird to the wild and their excitement was at an all time high the day that they were finally going to open the cage and release the bird to soar free.
To their amazement the bird did not take off in flight, but instead only sat on a rock as if still captive in a cage. Even though they had taken the bird out of the cage it was harder to get the cage out of the bird! Later that afternoon after they had given up on trying everything to get this bird to take off in flight and discover its new freedom, a wild fish eagle came over the mountain and started to call out with its very distinct call that can be heard from long distances. Something very interesting happened. The previously captive eagle’s eyes lit up.The second time the wild eagle called out, the captive eagle started looking around with great excitement and when the wild eagle called out for the third time the once captive bird took off in flight and it was not long before he was soaring with the wild eagles.
Something awakened in the bird, when he discovered who he really was and nobody had to instruct him on how to fly because it was in his genes. He was an eagle that was made to fly and soar on the winds!
This also true about every one of us, when we will discover our true origin and identity in the rock who gave us birth. When writing to the church at Colossae, Paul gave us some profound insight.
“Be careful that nobody spoils your faith through intellectualism or high-sounding nonsense. Such stuff is at best founded on men’s ideas of the nature of the world and disregards Christ! Yet it is in Him that God gives a full and complete expression of Himself in bodily form. Moreover, your own completeness is realised in Him, who is the ruler over all authorities and the supreme head over all power. Col 2: 8 – 10 JB Phillips
First Paul says that, “in Him that God gives a full and complete expression of Himself in bodily form.” So Paul explains that in Jesus Christ God fully expressed himself in a bodily or human form, so if we saw Jesus we would see a man fully expressing who God is.
Secondly Paul says, Moreover or more importantly! “…your own completeness is realised in Him” so what Paul was saying to us is this; even though Jesus is the full expression of God in the flesh, when we look at him we also see who we are! We are the offspring of God!
The day we discover who Jesus is we discover who we are! The day we meet Jesus, is the day we actually meet ourselves!
