Our True Identity

[HKHaugan]

Our True Identity

This continues a short series on our identity, who we are. The first part deals with two issues, worldly identity and spiritual identity. Worldly identity has to do with names, nouns and adjectives that give a person an individual identity where they live and work. It's source is man.

Spiritual identity has to do with who we are in the mind, heart and Spirit of God. It is not only our real identity in the world but our real identity in the spiritual realm and for eternity. It's source is God. It reveals our true origin. Scripture tells us that we have our name written in the Lamb's Book of Life (Rev.21:27).

First, worldly identity.

Names are important because they distinguish us as individuals. Names give us recognition. Names give us identity. Expressions like ‘making a name for yourself’ ‘I bet my name on it’ ‘That’s a name I’ll remember’ carry social weight in the world. Names in the world signify the quest for success, fame, wealth and ultimate smugness of ‘having arrived.’ Either you have it or you don’t. It means becoming a ‘somebody’ as opposed to a ‘nobody’, having our ‘place in the sun’ with our elusive ‘15 minutes of fame.’ When you see the people who have 'arrived' they are really lonely prisoners of the image built around them by others, like actors, famous people in the news and whatever else draws people's attention. Worldly image seeking and making is idolatry fine-tuned in our age.

Nouns give us an impression of character. A man may be an 'oak tree' intimating strength. Another is a 'treasure' or a 'softy', a 'giant,' a 'beast.' If it is a woman, she is a 'charmer', a 'vixen,' a 'queen,' a 'Venus.' Both man and woman can be 'the real thing' meaning they are genuine.

Adjectives abound. Thrifty, kind, hateful, truthful, supportive, caring, compassionate, loving, mean, sneaky, salt of the earth, peppery, stand-offish, reserved, and a whole lot of et ceteras.

The dynamics of the TV show American Idol could very well be transferred to Industrial Idol, Economic Idol, Education Idol, Religion Idol, Political Idol, Social Idol, Community Idol, Club Idol, Sports Idol, Teen Idol, Prom Idol, Senior Idol, ad infinitum. These are the horizontal worldly goals to ‘rise above’ anonymity and the ‘masses.’ By the world’s standards anonymity is a curse and fame is a blessing.  For a disciple of Jesus anonymity is a blessing and fame the curse.  Keep reading and you'll see why.

There is a need in each of us for recognition, acceptance, control, security, meaning, purpose and significance. They are deep needs and the world offers bundles of pastimes to keep you absorbed in pursuit of their empty promises. Empty because when you have finally ‘arrived’ It is never enough. People who make lots of money never have enough. People who get trophies and awards find they point to every last moment not to every next moment. They have to keep up the same pace to accomplish the same goals but discover their names, their accomplishments and fame fade with age and physical erosion. At the end of that race is a rat and the pace gets flat. There's always someone breathing hot on your heels to replace you, someone younger, someone who could care less for what you have accomplished, someone who sees you as a faded ‘idol’, a distant and forgettable memory. Graveyards are full of tombstones whose names are covered with the dust of death and the mossy green mold of yesterday’s unknown past. A bridge, a building, a street and even a town may have a formerly famous name but now their fame is their function.

The prince of this world, the devil, nudges our inner needs telling us that history is all about me and my ‘now.’ He is after us to forget ancestors, their deeds and the textbook faces from previous eras. They are irrelevant in helping you get your piece of notoriety. Put aside any spiritual idea since religion is all myth and wishful thinking. Therefore, ‘get what you can while the getting is good,’ ‘this is your only chance so go for it,’ ‘do unto others before they do you’ and other twisted self-centered paranoid stratagems. You are really better than anyone else. Think that way and you’ll 'arrive.' In the world, identity is idolatry, which ends in lonely separation from God and others. Identity and idolatry both start with the letter 'I'.

Second, spiritual identity.

When Jesus came something unique happened. He said, “Before Abraham was, 'I AM.'” He turned the world upside down. He revealed that every ‘nobody’ was ‘somebody’ to God. Everyone was created to be an image of Him. The Creator of the universe made them, knew them intimately and took a personal part in their lives. Mankind was God-kind. Mankind is God-kind. He loved them then and He loves us now. Their spiritual nature raised them above the world and its definitions. God created all people. They are His creatures and when they believe in Him they are His children. He was their Father then, their provider, their sustainer, their mind and heart, all of which is true now.

Now here is the smashing difference Jesus brings. Anonymity is a blessing and fame exposed as empty. He reverses identity and shows something brand new. Anonymity is the foundation for Jesus to show the power of love, forgiveness and the stability He brings through faith. Spiritual reality is the 'real thing,' the lasting thing. Fame is the false thing, the temporary thing. When individuals believe, they become more important than emperors, kings and presidents. It is the anonymous people of the world who are the real change agents especially when they are motivated by their personal relationship with the Lord. Look at the great movements against poverty, ignorance and disease. Behind them all stands the Cross and the Resurrection. Every believer's life is a rise from the gutter of lonely self-centeredness to the throne of the Lord God through a faith that overcomes fear.

In Jesus God showed the world what a real human being looked like. He was 'the real thing.' He came to show the true identity meant for every human being to be an image and likeness of Himself. In Jesus everyone can have an identity higher, lasting and more profound than any worldly definition. This is why the world atmosphere is full of hate for anything Christian because world powers can’t control believers through fear and intimidation. Theirs is a spiritual power that seeks not to intimidate but to love, to care and to bring stability and peace to the heart. Threats of government, economic, social and military power support the belief that ‘now’ is all there is and that the spirit of fear enforces the threats.

Eternal life in Jesus neutralizes those fears because He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the One who defines the real ‘now’ as Himself, the way, the truth and the life. Our present is simply a staging ground for eternity. Our identity is in Him. Our names are written in His Book of Life. Are there grave markers, tombstones, written records, memorials, statues, fossil remains or genealogies? They will all fade and be changed in the twinkling of an eye when the trumpet sounds and the dead, cherished personally by God, are raised to life in the new Heaven and the new earth. In Christ our identity brings us oneness with God and an eternal family.

From John 1, “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.”

In John 17 Jesus prays to the Father, “I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

Finally, 1Jn.3, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.”