The Lord has been bringing me through a valuable lesson to learn – identity. For some time my professional, social, and even personal identity has not fulfilled what I thought I wanted to be when I grew up. When we come to a place of breaking and refinement, God will often crush the identity we want to portray or the identity we had and took pride in. What used to make us fill important or fulfilled no longer does. We find emptiness in trying to portray an identity on social media, to family, to friends, to work colleagues, for we long to be authentic and exactly what God created us to be.
When the crushing happens, we are left a bit shaky, for nothing seems to fit us. We are not what we used to be, so we must grow into what God has called us to. Though uncomfortable, this is a great place to be for God is removing all the false coverings and readying us to take on fully our identity in Christ. When we begin to walk in our identity in Christ it affects everything about us: how we behave and interact toward others, what we wear, what we eat, what we think about, how we respond to circumstances, even how we work/play/rest. I wanted to share the following for those fellow pilgrims who may be struggling with the same crushing and molding as the Lord fashions us into the vessels He created us to be.
What I offer is an identity that is true, that is real, that is eternal. Yes I desire not to give you an identity that shifts in the shadows and changes as the circumstance, but stays true beyond the whims of man, beyond the change in circumstances, beyond the highs and lows in life, so that your identity would be unmoved.
What is your identity in Me? Seek this, seek to know this and release the identities of man, release the identities of the enemy, release the identities that you try to portray upon yourself. This branding, this marketing ploy to paint the best picture of your life when I see every step you take. I see every struggle you make. I see every weakness, I see every strength. I see every cry of your heart that no man sees. I see the cries of your heart behind the laughter, behind the smiles, behind the witty comments. I see the desires of your heart. I see where you have fallen short. But I desire to make you even more than you can imagine.
I desire to give you an identity that is implausible by man. That as he looks at you he says, “This is not possible for your personality type, for those experiences you’ve had you have come this far with this personality, with this identity and you cannot change now. “ But I tell you, I make all things new. I change you into the vessel I desire. A vessel that will have its identity throughout eternity. So get to know this identity I give you. Get to know the plans I have for you. And rest and settle here. And be unmoved and be unshakeable. What is implausible by man is possible by God.
I, even I, am the Lord your God. I have carried you through the wilderness. I have carried you through the valley of the shadow of death. I do not desire that you fall but I have need to crush you. For those false places, those prideful notions have no place in My beloveds. For you take your worth not in what man says about you or what man does to you or how he behaves toward you but you take your worth in what I say about you and My love toward you. For this is the identity that is authentic, that is God breathed.
What I am working in you is far greater than your current circumstances. It surpasses even what will be accomplished in this life. For I see in eternity where you only see in limited time. I perfect your identity here. As you let Me move upon you because what I desire to impart in you, My love, My precious jewel. What I desire to impart in you is far beyond the weeping, far beyond the brokenness, but you must have walked this path to ready you, to season you, to prepare you for what I have planned. For what I desire to make you into. To form and fashion you into as a lump of clay.
I have had to crush you into brokenness to build you up. I have not taken delight in the crushing but in the building up I have looked forward to. Even as I did not look forward to the cross and I despised its shame, but I set my mind fully on the glory to be revealed when that which was to be accomplished on hearth was finished. So too, as I crush My beloveds and fashion them into new vessels I do not delight in the crushing, I delight in the fashioning and the identities I am forming them into. Because what man says is your identity pales in comparison to what I say is your identity, to what I say I have for you.
John 12:23-25
“Jesus replied, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.'”
I Peter 2:9-10
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
Galatians 3:26-27
“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”