Resurrection 7 Who Am I Really?

[HKHaugan]

Resurrection 7 Who Am I Really?

One of the old Twilight Zone TV episodes was about a man who was irritated by everyone he saw and wished that everyone would be like him. His wish came true and wherever he went, whether it was on a subway or a restaurant or just walking on the street, everyone looked and acted exactly like him. He saw himself in everyone. He found the reason he was so irritated with others was because he was irritated with himself so he wished everything to be like it was. He really didn't know who he was. Isn't that what the world is all about, being the same so as not to be different? Yet the heart knows we are different but doesn't know how to express it. We join social groups that have different identities but within them there is the call to 'fit in', be the same, look the same, act the same, sound the same, according to the group identity. Ultimately, as believers, we know that only in Christ can our individuality, our uniqueness, find its true identity. As Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is within you (Lk.7:20-21).”

What I know

Since Paul was quick to share his former identity (Php.4:4-6), I would like to share my varied experience of identity in adjectives. Each are filled with identity demands and 'fit in' methods. Within each a collection of emotional baggage is attached, perceived needs desiring satisfaction, fear of not being accepted, anxious to be someone I was not. Real needs avoided along the way. We're all there at one time or another. Believe me, this is a brief summary.

I am an American of Norwegian descent, born in Brooklyn, New York, only child, male, raised briefly in a Norwegian-American community, moved to and early schooled in North Carolina, moved back and educated in a prestigious public high school, baptized and confirmed, delivery boy, Boy Scout, minor gang association, hitchhiker, ended up being a naturalized Floridian since 1950, Florida Gator with a BA, fraternity member, lifeguard, TV country singer, Rotary Club member, swimming instructor, ski supervisor, prep school teacher, cook, chef, bartender, farm worker, Master's Degree from University of the South, ordained Episcopal clergyman, presently retired Anglican clergyman, traveled in Europe and Middle East, studied in a Norwegian Summer school, vicar, youth director, rector, chaplain, TV Bible program host, husband, father, friend, Bible teacher, forgiven sinner and spiritually reborn, evangelical, active member of a parish and a senior citizen en route to Heaven. I see myself as a loving husband and father and struggle to be both. My wife and children may question that from time to time as others do in their experiences but we are still learning the in's and out's and so thankful for the growth we have experienced together.

I am also emotionally conflicted from time to time and gauge my reactions as closely as I can to what Jesus would have me be in my salvation process. Some know my failures in judgment and others extol my virtues. I am somewhere in between failure and virtue depending on my faith dependency in every next moment. There are all kinds of momentary identification factors out of the world I've used along the way to fit into the needs of the moment. I would say many others share a similar kind of identity formation. All in all I would sum it up this way. My goal before receiving Jesus was to fit in to whatever the needs of the moment dictated. That's how sin controls us. It makes us think we are in control. I maneuvered through the mine fields of the attitudes and opinions of others agreeing where it was uncomfortable not to agree and individualistic when it was safe to disagree. Reading the unseen attitudinal atmosphere is critical when you are working on being a somebody rather than a shunned nobody in the world.

In Christ came the light through the crack in the door which I began to open to Him on Martha's Vineyard in the Summer of 1969. He informed me I am a somebody to Him. Instead of my trying hard to fit in to a church structure and the social acceptance of 'the right people' which were my focus, now I'm letting Jesus take hold of the moment I'm in. The old self is always trying to push through the coffin of past conditioning but the Holy Spirit nudges me when I hear its cultural whimperings and reminds me I have been risen with Christ. Then I know it's prayer time which can be both brief and lengthy depending on the moments before, during and after.

Like Paul, what I used for profit I now consider a loss compared to knowing Jesus (Php.4:7). There's one thing for sure. All of those identity factors were not dissolved but became a 'coat of many colors', part of my testimony, after I chose Jesus to identify me. That happened the moment I accepted Jesus to be my Savior and Lord. My prayer is for my relationship with Him to identify me within and lead me without. Instead of hiding my imperfections I know Jesus is changing them with His perfection. All those other things listed above and more, have become the usable means to be a witness to Him. They were definitions in my past that consumed my moment to moment identity concerns. In Christ I am a unique image and child of God, a disciple of Jesus and His servant, a vessel of the Holy Spirit to fulfill His purpose for me in the local world in which I live. I know what grace means. In spite of my sin, its fear and pride, He chose me to be His in the midst of all of it. He is maturing me and all who believe in Him. He is moving you and me to look forward in every next moment as He guides in that moment to come. It's always a new moment lived by faith in Him to let Him use us to salt and light. It's about living for Him to reconcile our world to His will, His love, His truth and His grace.

What we know

When you receive the Lord, He gives you the gift of the Holy Spirit to restore your identity as a child of God, spiritualizing your mind, heart and spirit along the way, in order to live a spiritually transformed life. You don't just get an identity, you live that identity. You are no longer an adjective, you are a verb. Your identity is alive and on the move. Your identity is not a descriptive name and a number, but a lifestyle that is active, moving and producing. It's changing from depending solely on self to depending solely on God in every next moment. We know we are citizens of Heaven. We know to whom we belong. We know we are on the move in a wilderness called 'the world.' We know we have a Savior and Lord with us all the time. We know we have the Word to inform us and the Holy Spirit to guide us.

What we are

When Jesus was resurrected He didn't just sit back basking in the glory of the moment. He was on the move. He left the tomb to be with His disciples and those who believed in Him. For a period forty days He appeared to different individuals and groups. Right now He is directing traffic, spiritual traffic from spiritual headquarters, through the Holy Spirit. He is there constantly helping us make spiritual adjustments not only in major decisions but in all the seemingly insignificant choices. He is what makes us a Resurrection people.

We are in the process of Him directing our spiritual transformation, a total experience making everything a subject for spiritual analysis and definition. We are being moved from sin to being right, from self centeredness to Jesus centeredness, from being physically and emotionally defined to being spiritually defined. We are living the resurrected life through Him. Rather than being ruled by what we can see we thrive based on what we can't see. That's the whole point of faith. What is seen is terminal, what is unseen is eternal.

Spiritual life in Jesus is always looking forward not back. It's a life of belief for the mind, trust for the heart and faith for the spirit. It lasts forever. As disciples we are not preparing for death. We are preparing for life. This was the life Jesus showed, now shows and will continue to show. The Holy Spirit is that life. Jesus blessed us to be a Resurrection people who share Him and His life with everyone we meet, believer and non-believer alike.

What we know and who we are become the platform where we are for what we can become in Jesus.

Wherever we are

When we received Jesus as Savior and Lord we rose with Him. Though our bodies die we are alive in Him. We are spiritual beings dressed as human beings. Jesus dressed in the same way, taught the truth and lived by the Spirit, died in the Spirit and rose in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is His gift to us to invigorate our identity for ministry and mission as a Resurrection people. That's our identity wherever we are, awake to act and asleep to rest.

Two places define our activity, the Body of Christ and the world. In the Body of Christ we are spiritual brothers and sisters to one another. Jesus said, “Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother (Mk.3:35).” In the world we are witnesses for Jesus “...in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth (Acts.2:8) .”

With whomever we are

First, in the Body of Christ we have an extended identity, a spiritual identity in an extended family, a spiritual family. We are brothers and sisters having been given spiritual gifts with which to see each other spiritually. The Body of Christ is where we grow and mature with a new dependency on God that functions as a means of growth for one another. No longer do we look at one another in terms of ethnicity, appearance, social or economic definitions. Spiritual gifts determine the level of our communication and how we function in the Body. Our gifts not only identify us in the Body but are the way we help each other mature. In Christ we learn to need each other, depend on each other and look forward to being with each other. In Christ we learn to love, to trust, to be friends, lift one another up, to be there for one another, to free one another from the roadblocks to our true identity.

Second, in the world we are witnesses, relational witnesses. In the world we are with all kinds of people, believers in God, believers in religions and believers in themselves alone. In the world people without faith in Jesus live for the moment, unsure in the moment, surviving in the moment, seeking meaning, purpose and significance. As witnesses we live looking forward to share Jesus in the moment based on the His presence in every next moment. Witnesses are never alone. Witnesses are always on the move discerning the spirituality of the moment and praying to be aware of the Holy Spirit's guidance in the moment. Witnesses want to know the mind and heart of those around them. Witnesses are not time oriented but relationally conscious, needs conscious. Moments are all spiritual, God's moments, moments no clock can measure.

Third, we have a daily symbol to remind and keep us humble and honest, the Cross of Christ. Whether we wear one or carry it in our hearts, the Cross of Jesus is the memory jogger that His life is the new life we live wherever and with whomever. Actually every moment of His earthly life was a Cross moment the secular world could not embrace and He was killed for them. But all that He lived in His earthly life was resurrected. It is our faith in His whole life that allows the Holy Spirit to make every moment a Jesus moment through us. The gifts we share and the witness we bear are Jesus at work through us. The Cross is always the check on thought and behavior. Faith in Him is the cross we are called to bear. “For the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God (1Cor.1:18).” It means we are dying to first impressions, cultural judgments, opinionated anger and emotional defensiveness as we await the risen Christ in every next moment. How He met His every next moment is how we are called to meet ours. Every Jesus moment recorded in Scripture is why we read it, why we let the Spirit be our Inspirer for our every next moment.

Our uniqueness

We are all unique in Jesus. It cannot be emphasized enough that the uniqueness of Jesus reveals our uniqueness in Him. We, each of us, are unique to Him. He knows us by name. That's when our confidence in being unique in the world around us really begins. This why Scripture tells us the hairs on our heads are numbered. That He knew us before we were conceived and while we were being formed in the womb. He knows us as we think and move and have our being. Even our names are written in the Book of Life.

Just as Jesus was unique to the Father and the Father unique to Jesus and the Holy Spirit unique to each of them so we are unique to this One in Three, Three in One God. He has the same view of each of us and His three-in-one uniqueness is our uniqueness in mind, heart and spirit. We need to see that God's love is for each of us uniquely, personally and relationally. We have not been made to be like anyone else. Rather it's who we can become in relationship to Him. This has got to sink in to each of us, to slam us up against and through the wall of our doubts and fears, to experience, like Jacob wrestling with God, how important and personally unique we are to our intimate loving God.

Every personal story in the Bible is our story, the reclaiming of the uniqueness we have in Him. This is why all the people mentioned in the Bible are detailed individually in how they think and act. We are not here to copy them of other believers. When we see ourselves in them we are encouraged to be unique and every next moment becomes our story. When we lay claim to the uniqueness we have in Him that is when the world we live in locally begins to change. Our family, our friends, the people we meet, are all confronted by the Spirit in us to evaluate us and to respond in some way. Some may realize that and others won't but that is exactly what happens when we in Jesus exercise our uniqueness in Him. It happened to Jesus. It will happen to us. It doesn't make any difference. We witness anyway, just as He did. It's got be thrilling to know that we are free in Jesus to be His witnesses, unique witnesses, working and living witnesses. He is our identity. That's who we are, a Resurrection people.