Identity drives behavior. Who you think you are ultimately determines how you will act. If my local postman believes himself to be the King of England, he will start wearing a crown and attempting to issue royal commands to me - and I would consider him to be quite literally insane. His actions are consistent with who he believes he is, but it doesn't line up with the reality of who he really is. More on that in a moment.
I want to touch on another major principle: there is a difference between what we do and who we are. I know, I just said in the last paragraph that who we think we are determines what we do, but there's a slight shift here that's really important to catch: identity drives behavior, but behavior does not cause identity.
In other words: there's a difference between tripping and being clumsy; between stealing and being a thief; between rebelling and being rebellious; in short, between sinning and being a sinner.
But we empower whatever we focus on, so if I sin, then label myself as a sinner, then put my focus on my identity as a sinner, I'm going to continue to commit that sin. It's a vicious cycle, and there's only one way out: embracing a new identity.
There's a big difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. We know that. But I see a tendency among Christians to quote certain Old Testament verses as though they were still true today, forgetting that those verses are describing people under an Old Covenant. Here are a few examples that touch directly on the issue of identity:
"The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure." (Jer. 17:9) I sometimes hear believers quote this verse in reference to themselves, when they're trying to say that they don't trust their own motives. But this statement is simply not true of New Covenant Christians. The truth of our current situation is that "God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 5:5), and that God "put his Spirit in our hearts" (2 Cor. 1:22). And that Spirit is the same Spirit that Jesus called "the Spirit of Truth." (Jn. 16:13) Truth is the opposite of deceit. I don't have a deceitful heart that is beyond cure, I have a heart that is full of the Spirit of Truth.
Here's a quick "one-two-punch" combination that settles it for me: in the Old Covenant, God promised through the prophet Ezekiel that there was day coming when He would establish a new relationship with His people. He said, "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean ... I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you." (Ezek. 36:25-26) In Hebrews, we find that this sprinkling and cleansing that gives us a new heart has been accomplished: "let us draw near to God with a sincere [lit., "true"] heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water." (Heb. 10:22)
No more deceitful heart.
"I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another." (Is. 42:8) This verse gets used to put (and keep) distance between us and God. He's powerful, we're not; He's holy, we're not; He gets all the glory, and shares it with no one.
I'm not denying that God is powerful, holy, and deserving of all the glory. I'm saying that if we see Him as wanting to keep us at a distance, we haven't understood His heart as our Father - His heart is to give us everything He has. Let's look at the entirety of that verse: "I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols." When God says He won't share His glory with another, He's not talking about His children, He's talking about idols.
For God's view on sharing His glory with His children, you have to listen to the words of Jesus as He prayed to His Father concerning believers: "I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one." (Jn. 17:22) God gave His glory to Jesus, and Jesus has given it to us, so that we can all be one.
Ok, one more.
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways ... As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Is. 55:8,9) This is another one of those "distancing" verses that can really mess with our identity, if we forget who this verse was written to and when it was written. It was written to an Old Covenant people who were in the midst of major idolatry and rebellion. Of course God's thoughts and ways were a thousand miles apart from theirs - they were worshiping false gods!
In the New Covenant, it's a different story. Not only are our thoughts closer in proximity to His thoughts, He's actually gotten His thoughts into our thoughts! Paul says, "we have the mind of Christ." (1 Cor. 2:16)
These are all issues of identity. When I became united with Christ, I got His identity (Gal. 2:20); I went from being "slave of sin" to "son of God" (Gal. 4:6); I became a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17); I became a participant in the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4); I got His mind (1 Cor. 2:16); I got His heart (Eph. 3:17); I got His inheritance (Rom. 8:17); I got His glory (Jn. 17:22).
What this means is that it's not natural for me to keep on sinning. I might still commit sin, but I'm doing something strange and foreign to my nature - it's out of character. But if I believe that sinning is "natural" for me, and completely in harmony with my character ("Well, I expect that of myself, I'm still just a sinner who's been forgiven"), I'll keep on doing it and lock myself into a cycle. Thinking that way about myself just hands the power and authority over to the enemy, when in reality, he has none.
So, back to my insane postman. He's insane because he believes he is a king, and out of that belief he is acting in harmony with his perceived identity. He's crazy. But if I believe that I'm a sinner, out of that belief I will act in harmony with that identity, and I will be just as insane as the postman.
I trip sometimes; but I am not clumsy. I fail sometimes; but I am not a failure. I sin; but I am not a sinner. Those things are not my identity.
I'm a saint, and a child of God, with full access to my Father's inheritance.
Jacob
