CHRISTIAN
LIVING, IDENTITY IN CHRIST
THE STORY is told that one day the daughter of the Queen of England was sitting in a chair and slouching, sitting very awkwardly. They were out in public and the Queen’s daughter had become an embarrassment because she was not behaving in concert with her identity. The Queen looked at her daughter and said, “Sit up, don’t you know who you are?”100
MY WIFE and I got married in 1970. On that day a major change took place in her life. Her name changed. Although she had been Lois I. Cannings, her name became Lois Evans. She had a new identification.
We spent the first summer of our marriage in Harlem at 133rd and Lennox. I was involved in a ministry up there. We stayed, during that ministry time, in an apartment over a church. We’d just been there a day or so when someone called on the telephone and said, “May I speak to Mrs. Evans?”
My wife said, “Hold the line.”
She went looking for Mrs. Evans until it dawned on her after she had left the phone that SHE was HER!
She came back to the phone, changed her voice, and said, “Hello, Mrs. Evans here.”
She had forgotten who she was. She had forgotten her identity. When you forget who you are, you don’t act like you should.101
1 Cor. 7:22–23; 2 Cor. 3:2–4
CHRISTIAN, don’t you know who you are? Stop letting the world tell you who you are. You are a child of God. You are a saint. You are sanctified. You are secure. You are holy. You have royal blood flowing through your veins! That’s who you are! A lot of us are not acting like we should act because we don’t remember who we are.102
1 Peter 2:9
WHEN your favorite sports team wins, you will say, “We won!”
WE who? You weren’t on the field. You didn’t get tackled. You didn’t get hit. You didn’t throw the ball. You didn’t make an interception. You didn’t block anyone. What do you mean WE won? WE won by identification. Because you identify with the team, when they win, you win.
We identify so much that we even call our buddies who live in another city and tell them, “We beat you!” We vicariously identify! We feel good when our team wins and we feel bad when our team loses. Why? Because we understand that we are related to the team by identity.
When Jesus died, you died. When Jesus arose, you arose. When Jesus comes back, you will rise to go with Him because that’s who you are. We must identify with who we are in Christ. We have a new identity now.103
[Spiritual Identity, in Christ]
Rom. 8:9–17
DURING the Civil War, it was legal for a man who wanted to stay out of the army of the North to pay someone to fulfill his draft obligations. A man could actually buy someone to go to war for him. There was a man named Mr. Pratt who paid Mr. White to go fight a battle in the Civil War for him. Mr. White was killed. Mr. Pratt was redrafted. Mr. Pratt then took the agreement between himself and Mr. White to the draft board and told them that the second draft was invalid and ineffective because he “died” in Mr. White who had gone to war in his place.
When Satan comes up to you to redraft you into your old life, when Satan gives you a recall to your old way of thinking, your old way of talking, or your old way of acting, you’ve got to show him the agreement.
You can say, “Jesus Christ has already died in my place. You can’t redraft me to that old life anymore. You can’t take me back to that old way of thinking anymore. The payment has already been paid.”104
[New Life in Christ; Satan]
ONE of the responsibilities of ministerial work is performing weddings, and in every wedding there is something I do all the time. I get to the place in the ceremony where I say, “Who gives this lady away to be married?” Generally, it’s the father or some surrogate for the father who has positioned himself by the daughter and an exchange takes place. The father or surrogate then says, “I do.”
Now I have bad news for the dad. Once he says, “I do,” he can go sit down. I’m through with him. I will have no other conversation with him in the whole ceremony. Why? Because he’s irrelevant now. Because in that ceremony, the man, the bridegroom, will then come and replace the father. The two of them will come up before me and I will go through the wedding vows. They will exchange the rings and then I will close the ceremony by saying, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” The audience will then stand and receive the new couple.
That young lady has been transformed. She has been transformed not because she’s a different lady but because she has a new identity now. When she came into the building, she was Jane Somebody. But once she has been presented by her father, she comes under a new authority and enters into a new relationship. The first man is now overruled by a younger, newer man, strictly for one reason and one reason alone: the young lady has transferred identities. The Bible says that you have transferred identities and when that old man called the flesh starts telling you what to do, you are supposed to tell it, “I have a new hubby now. I am married to a new lover now. I’m wearing a new ring now. I have a new name now.”105
[New Life in Christ; Spiritual Identity, in Christ; Natural Man; Freedom]
Rom. 6:4; 2 Cor. 5:17
ON ONE of my shirts, I have my initials sewn onto the cuff. There will never be a question about whose shirt it is because my initials prove that it’s my shirt. It’s a shirt customized for me. Now I have some shirts that come off the rack and a lot of folks can possibly claim that they have one just like those, but not this one because this one is custom-made.
When something is custom-made it means it’s fitted to your uniqueness. It has been crafted with you in mind. That means that it’s not for everyone else to wear. We are all unique. We are all custom-made. There is no reason to try to be someone else or to live someone else’s life. Why settle for off-the-rack living when there is an identity and life in Christ custom-made for each one of us?106
[Calling]
A MAN went to go visit a psychiatrist one day. When the doctor came in, he asked, “What can I do for you today? What seems to be the problem?”
“I have a problem. Every single time I go to the grocery store, when I pass by the dog food section, something in me tells me that I need to open a can of Alpo and eat it. Something inside tells me to pick up a can of Alpo, open it up, and start chowing away.”
The doctor said, “Well, this is a little different from anything I’ve ever dealt with before. How long have you been dealing with this problem?”
The man said, “Ever since I was a puppy!”
This man was very confused about who he really was. If he were a dog by identity, then Alpo is what he would be looking for. Just as that gentleman was confused, many Christians are confused about their identity in Christ.107
I REMEMBER A few years ago we were driving down from Boston in the fall of the year. You know, the scene was beautiful. As leaves changed to brown, it was a wonderful fall sight along the Eastern coast. It was magnificent. People come from all over the country and even around the world to watch the changing of the colors.
But a lot of people don’t understand the colors. They get the colors mixed up. They think the color is changing from green to brown. No, the real color of the leaves is brown, not green. The reason why brown leaves become green is that chlorophyll begins to reproduce on brown leaves during the spring and the summer, turning their natural brown color and camouflaging it so that what you see is green. But the green looks so impressive you think the green is the real deal, when actually the green is hiding the real deal. The real deal is brown. So in the fall, when the green chlorophyll begins to die, it unveils what’s really there.
A lot of us have covered up the Spirit, so that we don’t see our true colors or our true identity. We walk around projecting a fake identity. Many of us are fake Christians, trying to look like real Christians, when God wants to cut away the fake, so that the real deal shows up.108
[New Life in Christ; Spiritual Identity, in Christ]
Heb. 10:21–23