Hi how are you all today? I am well and looking forward to Christmas holidays. My calendar is filling up with family visits, Christmas production at church, community carols and end of year get togethers. It can be a busy time of the year.
The other day I said something to my husband like that was a silly thing to do. His reply was that he’s not silly. My response was your actions were silly not you. Too often people, including me do or say silly things. Often we call them silly but is that how God wants us to speak?
You see actions can be silly but identity is never silly.
We need to ensure we are differentiating between actions and identity. Your actions are fleeting – they change according to what you are doing. But identity stays with us – it is who we are. Identity is only changed when we give our lives to Jesus or another event happens in our life. Our identity changes when we get married or when we have children etc. Our identity is who we are known as.
My favourite story in the Bible in relation to this is Gideon. His story is found in Judges chapters 6 to 8. The Israelites were again disobeying God and when God sent the Midianites against them, they cried out to God.
So God looked for a person He could trust to carry out His plan of redemption for them from the Midianites. Let’s pick the story up in verses 11 and 12 of chapter 6.
It states in the NIV version:
11 The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshingwheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites.12 When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”
These verses contain action and identity but the two do not correlate in any aspect.
Action – Gideon is threshing wheat in a wine press.
What does this intimate about Gideon? Let’s look at some words: coward, insecure, doubt God, don’t trust God, doesn’t remember the things God did for his nation, scared and broken. Have you ever felt like that? Maybe it is how you think God sees you.
Remember God said to Samuel in 1 Samuel 15: God does not look at the appearance but at the heart. God is not looking at your actions and disqualifying you. Many times we find ourselves hiding from God because of this very thing. It is time for us to come out of hiding and find out the truth about what God really thinks about us.
Identity- the angel tells Gideon that God is with him and calls him a mighty warrior. Hang on- isn’t a warrior brave and has armour. Gideon looks like he doesn’t have either.
God was speaking into Gideons future regardless of his current actions. He does exactly the same with us – son, you are a mighty speaker of the Word of God, daughter, you are a mighty prayer warrior and all we feel is unseen, unloved and hopeless. Let’s look a little further on.
The next question from Gideon was neither about action or identity – it was God where are you. I think if we answer that question in our own lives that we receive clarity about identity. It is only when we know God is with us, are we brave enough to walk in our identity.
God then answered and told Gideon:
Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”
God always speaks to our future. He wants us to trust Him when we don’t understand. How can we do this?
First, we need to know Who God is and then we need to know who we are in God and then we need to know that God will go with us.
Gods identity + our identity in God + God is with us = a three cord strand that is not easily broken and is strong.
Once we have this set in our hearts then we know wrong actions can be forgiven, good actions show God in us and our identity in God is unchangeable.
This is how we live the life God intended for all of us.
Bless you
Karen
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