2 Corinthians 5:14-17: Either way, Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive His new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them. So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know Him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

Do you know who you are in Christ? Who we are has been a mystery to mankind since our very creation. Wasn’t Eve led astray by Satan and into sin over the mystery of her identity? Didn’t Satan lie to her about the result of eating from the tree of knowledge; he told her that she would be LIKE God. By eating from the tree, Eve was rebellious, and we know that we can’t become like God through disobedience.  Satan made it appear as though God was keeping something back or hidden from Eve and convinced her that she could discover the mystery of her hidden identity by participating in sinful activity.

Why did the Lord God create us in His image and likeness and then leave us ignorant about who we were? Since the Bible declares that man, both male and female were created in the image and likeness of God, we now know Who to go to for the answers surrounding the mystery of our spiritual identity. Obviously, God didn’t desire for mankind to be a “ROBOT.” He created us in His image, but with a void of the knowledge of who He is and who we are in Him so that we might seek to know Him through a relationship. The Lord God’s desire is for us to want to have an intimate relationship with Him. He wants us to desire Him, not just have knowledge about Him. By the Lord creating us with the void of knowing Him, He was giving mankind the freedom and the option to choose for ourselves to know Him. Unfortunately, man chose to “learn” about God outside the perimeters of God’s provision and will. Instead of man becoming like God through Satan’s lie, we became spiritually blinded to God’s ways and lost our ability to know who we are or who we were to become.

It was unbelief that caused Adam and Eve to believe Satan’s lies about God. If they had chosen God’s way of knowing Him as Lord, they would have discovered their spiritual identity. So wouldn’t it stand to reason that “faith,” the opposite of unbelief, would be the way to know God and to know who we are spiritually? When we choose to walk by faith in Christ as Abraham, Sarah, and a host of other men and women of God have done, we have chosen the only path that will lead us to know God and discover our true identity. The path of righteousness is the only avenue that gives humans the liberty to be all that God has called us to be. Faith in Christ and obedience to His Word liberates us from the bondage of the flesh nature so that the new man can burst forth. To the degree that we can say we know God or His ways will be the degree that we will know our spiritual identity. Therefore, if we desire to know our true identity and seek to be free from this world, then we must form a deep desire and hunger for God and His righteousness. Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount that if we hunger and thirst for Him, we shall be filled.

There’s only one way to fill that void completely in our hearts and that is to seek God with all our hearts, souls, mind, and strength. As we diligently seek Him, He will reward us with the understanding of who we are in Christ. Any other way we choose to try and discover who we are, other than God’s predetermined plan, will end up in disappointment and disaster. We have learned that lesson through the decisions of Adam and Eve. Let us choose to walk in the Light while He is with us so that we won’t stumble in the dark and fall.  —submitted by Pastor Asa Dockery, US