How Identity is Formed
The world and Hollywood teaches that you have to find yourself. They teach that you should try out a bunch of experiences and a bunch of people and watch your feelings to see what makes you feel good and what makes you feel happy. This instruction teaches us to live sensual and for outside people and things to make us happy. There are some in our culture that take a slightly different approach and challenge us to be true to ourselves, to look inward for happiness. This teaches us to be self centered and selfish.
These instructions from our culture will only make us unfulfilled and dissatisfied. God did not design us to find fulfillment through receiving or by taking, or even by looking to ourselves. None of these sources can satisfy. They will only leave us feeling empty. Divorce is common in Hollywood. Sexual immorality produces loss of value. Chasing self produces selfishness. Most people settle to be identified by what they do or their gifting, and become blind to any real sense of worth. There is no value to be found in these methods. This is why many in our culture struggle with insecurity, depression, medication and personality disorders.
- Your conscience will resist any identity that is in conflict with God’s heart for you.
- Any Identity that doesn’t fit with your calling will cause you to feel unfulfilled.
- Your heart will second guess any identity that you establish without proof.
When you live violating your conscience, you will learn to hate yourself. You will agree that you don’t deserve the love that God offers and you will never fulfill your calling. You might try to fulfill it by gifting, but you will struggle as you start trying to please God. Depression will haunt you. You will find that you live with a mask, trying to prove yourself to those around you all the while knowing that you are in fact a failure. Anytime someone gets close to uncovering your shame, you will lash out. But, your secret sins will eventually be discovered. If you are such a person, at least begin to open up and become vulnerable with another person. Or, at best, start to do the work of allowing God to uncover the lies behind your sin so He can remove it permanently.
If you choose to find your value in what you do, you will never really find fulfillment. Many of your relationships will be shallow. You will always feel like your true potential is unseen. You may even feel like you have been misidentified. You will find that you struggle to fully give yourself to anyone, even your family. You will live just going through the motions. Love probably will be something that you can’t fully give, or receive. If someone diminishes you in your role, you will find anger or frustration. It will be as if your heart knows that this sense of value is on shaky ground. Your best option is to separate your heart from what you do and place all your attention on seeking God to know how He sees you.
If you try to find yourself or try to convince yourself who you are, you will never feel settled. We need someone of authority to identify us. Someone we can trust completely to know what is true about us. You are not that authority. There is only one who knows us well enough to release this truth to us to a level that satisfies our fragile hearts. If you have managed to find a true spiritual father in your life who has spoken destiny and value in your life, you have found something very good. You have found someone who can hear Father speak when we cannot. This is very good and very rare. If you have not found such a person, fret not. God is eager to speak to every one of His children and He always does a better job than we fathers do. Lean into His voice and let Him speak over you as many times as it takes for you to be convinced.
The only identity that resolves these issues is the one that God has already established for you, if you believe wholeheartedly.
Papa has been showing me that a wrong identity, like the condemnation identity that we have all had to wrestle with; a wrong identity will cause destruction in our lives. First and foremost, it will leave us in bondage to sin. When we think and feel like Jesus, we will have the same lifestyle He has. This includes all of the joy, peace, love and power he demonstrated. This lifestyle is automatic. This is why in 1 John 2:6, John tells us that if we abide in God, we will walk in Jesus’s footsteps. It is all automatic, when our identity is that of a son of Papa.
As we mentioned earlier, a wrong identity will cause depression if our identity is outside of God’s heart for us, or leaves us feeling like a failure. This has self hatred mixed into it and such emotions will cause the body to work against itself. You will be at odds with you. Many diseases form in this environment.
The identity of Sonship, in contrast, allows the life of heaven to flow through our members. The identity of Sonship is in perfect partnership with the flow of the Spirit.
Romans 12:2 TPT
[2] Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think. This will empower you to discern God’s will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in his eyes.
Proverbs 21:21-22 TPT
[21] The lovers of God who chase after righteousness will find all their dreams come true: an abundant life drenched with favor and a fountain that overflows with satisfaction. [22] A warrior filled with wisdom ascends into the high place and releases regional breakthrough, bringing down the strongholds of the mighty.
Righteousness is Sonship.
In God‘s eyes, to be righteous is to be a son. Those who are in Christ are already a dearly beloved son, the question is whether or not they walk in this. You don’t have to work at being a son. If you let God love on you, and talk to you, He will awaken you to who you really are. The process of becoming a fully awakened son, it’s simply letting God love us the way He wants. You don’t have to convince yourself, that would be works. Just allow God to love you until you are convinced. If there is anything to add to this, it would only be that we let go of anything contrary to the identity that He is releasing to us.
Proverbs 4:21-23 TPT
[21] Fill your thoughts with my words until they penetrate deep into your spirit. [22] Then, as you unwrap my words, they will impart true life and radiant health into the very core of your being. [23] So above all, guard the affections of your heart, for they affect all that you are. Pay attention to the welfare of your innermost being, for from there flows the wellspring of life.
We are being groomed by Father to take on the very nature of His Son. This identity is supreme. You won’t need to control your behavior when your thinking reflects that of Jesus’s. Notice that I said YOUR thinking. Not every thought that enters our heads comes from us. Any thought that is dark and contrary, regardless of its origin, we should disown it. “That does not belong to me… Papa, I thank you that you have made me into a new creation. You have made me to reflect your Son, Jesus.” Let us allow God to have His way. Let us continue to come to Him so that He can father our identity.
Romans 4:6-8 TP
[6] Even King David himself speaks to us regarding the complete wholeness that comes inside a person when God’s powerful declaration of righteousness is heard over our life. Apart from our works, God’s work is enough. [7] Here’s what David says: What happy fulfillment is ahead for those whose rebellion has been forgiven and whose sins are covered by blood. [8] What happy progress comes to them when they hear the Lord speak over them, “I will never hold your sins against you!”
Our righteousness is declared in Christ, but wholeness becomes a part of our life as we hear from our Papa. Our heart needs to hear that He is calling us, embracing us, and accepting us without judgment or regard to the past. When our heart hears, we gain the capacity to live out what He has spoken over us. I want you to hear Papa speak to you about who you are, how much He loves you, and about how He will never forsake you.
You don’t have to work towards wholeness. You are not trying to get God to fix you. God has already transformed you. Our behavior will be transformed once we see what we really are, a new creation. We surrender to Holy Spirit so that He can show us what we already are. Our only issue is that we don’t see the truth. The lies we live under, the lies we choose to believe, are the lies that are destroying us. It is Holy Spirit‘s job to lead us into what is already true. When you see it, you will naturally live in it; no effort, no struggle.
Holy Spirit will shift our perspective into what is true, and because we already are what He says, we will put this truth on display without effort once we can see it.
Ephesians 4:20-24 NKJV
[20] But you have not so learned Christ, [21] if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: [22] that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, [23] and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, [24] and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.
Ephesians 4:24 TPT
[24] And to be transformed as you embrace the glorious Christ-within as your new life and live in union with him! For God has re-created you all over again in his perfect righteousness, and you now belong to him in the realm of true holiness.
A person who fully embraces their identity as a Son of the Most High God, will demonstrate the same Life flow and authority as the original. We are being called to this. This is our birthright. It is our right to take on the nature of Jesus. Father loves us just as much as He loves Jesus. He is standing with His hand out saying, “Let Me lead you into it.” We are authorized to come close and sit on Papa’s lap. The Spirit of God will flow over us and release all that Jesus is into our being and reshape every thought until it agrees with God’s love and value. God will do His work until we see as He sees, until our eye is single and our body is flooded with light, and we take on the divine nature.
Papa wants the world to know who Jesus is, and He has chosen to use us.