Our True Identity

          Overcoming all false images of self:  MAIN HEALING LESSON 9

This teaching on being liberated from false ideas of self is just one of the 24 lessons in our workbook for personal transformation, "Matters of the Heart."  All 24 lessons will be helpful to the person seeking restoration and freedom and have been posted on this web site. They are available as a complete set in our workbook which can be purchased as a download or ordered through the mail. The lessons are also available on CD and DVD as 24, 1/2 hour teachings. All scriptures are from the NKJV unless otherwise noted.
 

Introduction

The all important issue of identity determines so much about how we will live and what we will do with our time here on earth. No one who has a poor self-image can truly enjoy living, yet the gospel has not come to tell you how great you are. Jesus says: “Without me you can do nothing (John 15:5),” and Paul writes, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells (Romans 7:18).” Hardly a formula for pride based self-esteem!

So what is the answer?
Discovering who we really are—now that Jesus has come to live inside of us. And our sense of self-worth? It is based upon the solid rock of His love for us—period. You are His Beloved—just try to wrap your heart around the enormity of that blazing truth. He lived and died and lives again to bring you fully to life! Everything else you could hope to get out of life—compared to this—is chump change (Philippians 3:7-8). Our True Identity is wrapped up in the incomparable mystery of God's great love for us.
 

Teaching summary

What could be of more practical value to us than discovering who we really are (other than discovering who our God really is)? There are  two great questions that face every human being: "is there a God" and "who am I." Socrates, after his encounter with the oracle of Delphi, believed he was commissioned by God to teach wisdom to men. The foundation? Know thyself! Our fundamental problem is that we do not know who our God is and we do not know who we really are. We are suffering from a kind of massive identity crisis made even worse by our failure to realize it and face up to it.

The fall into sin created an identity crisis
We tend to think mainly of the Fall as a fall into sin and into the sin nature, which it certainly was. We say rightly that fallen man, once created in the image of God, no longer reflects that image. But one essential effect of the Fall was that Adam in dying spiritually could no longer behold his God. Both the image of God and the image of man fell from Adam's sight. Adam could neither see who God is nor could he see who he himself truly was either—since who we are is entirely defined in relation to God who created us. Jesus has come to restore both our lost vision and our true identity.

Now that faith in Christ has come to us, we are new creations. This is the miracle of new birth (John 3:3-7; 1 Peter 1:23) that raises us into eternal life (John 3:16; John 17:3; 1 John 5:11-13).

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.   2 Corinthians 5:17



What does it mean that we are new creations? 

We still see a lot of the old nature and the former ways of living, but new things have been added that radically change all things. But before we look at the things that have become new, let’s review what has not changed or passed away. For Paul cannot be trying to tell us that we no longer have a sin nature to contend with! He above all the apostles lays out the ongoing struggle between the new creation (spirit) and the old nature (flesh) in texts too numerous to fully mention (Romans 7:17-20; Romans 8:1-8; 1 Corinthians 5:5; 2  Colossians 7:1; Galatians 5:13-17; Galatians 5:24-26). What does pass away?

1) What no longer exists is the person who did not know that Jesus is both Savior and Lord. That person has indeed passed away now that the revelation of Jesus Christ has come. Once you see the sun, even if you return to being blind, you are not the same.
2) Before conversion, we were one with our sins. With our repentance and faith in Christ, the Father separated us from our sins—by forgiving them. There is still an ongoing battle with sin, but continuing in sin is a spoiled thing for new creations because a) the conviction of the Spirit and b) the sense of separation from Christ both overshadow the former pleasures of unrighteousness. Many old ways of the new believer change with the new birth, but by no means do all of them. That is why we are in a process of cleansing and growth in Christ.
3) We are no longer “on the outside.” We were not a people, but now we are a part of God’s family. We were once strangers to the covenant, but now have been brought near.

This way of seeing the new birth (by what passed away) is like driving by looking in the rear view mirror. The really fine, forward looking view is how we appear now as new creations!

1) We have been spiritually reborn through the revelation of Jesus Christ (see Lesson 8: Beholding the True Image).
2) We have a new center. We can no longer measure anything in life without reference to Christ (2 Corinthians 5:16).
3) We have been given a new heart and a new spirit—a new nature!  (Ezekiel 36:26).
4) We live under a new covenant of immense mercy (Jeremiah 31:31-34; 2 Corinthians 5:18-19).
5) We are given the Holy Spirit, the righteousness of Christ, the name of Jesus.
6) We are not our past, not our sin, not our negative emotions—we are new creations!
7) Both you and the Lord have an incredible inheritance to receive. See Our Inheritance and the Lord's.

We are a mystery even to ourselves
God is bestowing a new identity upon us only He knows. Who we now are is only revealed whenever we trust and obey Jesus—we are “hidden” in Him. He is the key! As we die to self, we live through Christ (Romans 6:5-11). Pursuing Christ and living by the Spirit will lead us into the adventure of a lifetime as our true identity becomes disclosed by Him to ourselves and to others--one liberating step at a time. See more scriptures and a free download about this process of Renew, Refresh, Transform and about the many mysteries which surround us in The Mysteries of God in the New Testament as new creations In Christ and Christ in You.

For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.   Colossians 3:3

Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.   Matthew 16:24

God's total and complete acceptance of us is absolute and unchanging
What a wonderful ever present starting point for new life even just this one grand truth brings us!

It was God…in Christ, reconciling and restoring the world to favor with Himself, not counting up and holding against [men] their trespasses [but cancelling them].   2 Corinthians 5:19 AMP

This incredible Reconciliation covers all that we are, have been and will be whether in Adam or in Christ.  Faith is what God gives us so that we can receive this grace and be translated from the kingdom of darkness (in Adam) to the kingdom of His Son (in Christ), but faith did not in any way change God's heart towards us (which is love) or His reconciliation to our sins (which Jesus accomplished fully at the cross). In conversion the former self (that had no life in Christ) passed away and the true self (that lives through trusting Christ) has been reborn/regenerated. The new creation is a redeeming of the old, not an elimination of all that was former. We have a new start and a new center from which to live.



We are new, but the old is in us

The new creation “comes to life” in us whenever we trust in the One who is our new Life. As we “walk in the light” trusting God through Jesus Christ (1 John 1:7), our old nature is laid to rest like a shadow lying down behind us (Romans 6:6; Galatians 2:20). But the old creation can also “come to life” in us whenever we cease relying upon our God! 

I have been crucified with Christ… it is no longer I who live, but Christ… lives in me; and the life I now live in the body I live by faith in (by adherence to and reliance on and complete trust in) the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself up for me.   Galatians 2:20 AMP

The old nature draws power from false ideas of self shaped by the world. Some of us carry elements in our personality that we think of as ourselves. They are in us—but not us! Left unchecked, these false ideas of self can grow into strongholds in our flesh (see Strongholds (Main Healing Lesson 11)). Know anyone held by the grip of these strongholds at times? Learn to recognize and renounce the lie that this is who you are or that this is how God made you. Remember and take heart: what got in can be gotten out!

Nervous energy (anxious feelings)  
Perfectionism (people pleasing) 
Addictive personality   
Driven to achieve/succeed
Flashes of anger (hot temper)   
Excessive sensitivity (too easily hurt)
Timidity or shyness    
Deep wellsprings of grief over losses
Feelings of persistent loneliness    
Depression, heaviness of heart
Nuclear reactivity (panic mode)   
Impatience (prickly, irritable edges)
Stubbornness (pride and rebellion)  
Impulse to control or be in control

These ideas of self are not who we really are!
Any or all of these may describe our personality as we have known it, but they are not who we really are—not our God given personhood in Christ. They reveal where the fallen nature is still in power and can block the life of the new creation from coming forth. Consider these two things:

1) When we were born these traits weren’t in us: we trusted and loved freely—no baggage!
2) When we die and go to heaven, these traits will have to be removed from us. 

Restoration of our true life begins by breaking agreements with all false beliefs of who we are not and choosing to embrace instead what God is speaking over us about our true identity. Two images fell when Adam fell—that of God and of us. Get your image set right by seeing His. Whatever does not look like Jesus in you, isn’t the real you. Apply the 8 R’s! Proper self love is accepting God’s view of us—it is not pride or self-absorption. Let’s get cleansed.

Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.   1 John 3:2-3



Descriptions of self

Consider how these may make sense of understanding your inner life.

1) True self—who I am in Christ, new creation life, released by trust and obedience (2 Corinthians 5:17).

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God...   Galatians 2:20

2) False self—who I am apart from Christ, fallen nature, restrained by inward crucifixion.

And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.   Galatians 5:24

3) Actual self—who I am at this moment, a mixture of the two, revealed by testing (Deuteronomy 8:2).

I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.   Jeremiah 17:10

Here is the deal: In this life we will be incorrigibly weak, foolish, sinful and ignorant in many ways—apart from Christ.  But in Christ we are complete, secure, of breath-taking beauty.

Expect nothing of yourself, but all things of God. Knowledge of one’s own hopeless, incorrigible weakness combined with absolute confidence in God’s power are the two foundations of the spiritual life.
     Francois Fenelon, Bishop of Cambrais. Letters to Women.

Joy is automatically produced in us whenever we realize by an active faith who we really are in Him.

Even so, the truly great joy is not who we are in Christ, 
but who He is to us!
 

Interested in going deeper?

Don't just give these truths a "head bob"!
For further study and for help working these truths into your heart and life, see Our True Identity part 2 (Head to Heart Guide 9) and "work out" with exercises, discussion questions, review of main points, digging deeper, more scriptures, model prayers, renunciations/affirmations and practical steps of life application.

Or better yet, let us minister to you in person
     --at one of our Savannah Seminars...