Kingdom Alignment: A New Identity
Reading Time 4 Minutes
When WWI ended, hundreds of shell-shocked French soldiers could not remember who they were. Faulty military records provided no help. How could those victims of amnesia be reunited with their families?
The French held an Identification Rally in Paris, which was announced throughout France. On the planned day, thousands of people gathered in a large plaza. One by one bewildered soldiers mounted the high platform and anxiously asked, “Please, please, can somebody tell me who I am?”
Behavior drives identity. Many times throughout our lives we will be asked, “who are you?” Or other times we may ask, “who am I?” The world defines us by our accomplishments or careers. We respond with I’m a doctor, a teacher, or a stay-home mom, but those are wrong answers. That’s what we do but not who we are.
The believers in Corinth were dealing with the same issue. (2 Corinthians 5:17-18) They were new converts and had yet to experience the transformation that the new birth brought into their lives. Through unmerited grace they, as with you and I, had become a new creation with grace implanted in hearts. We all eventually know and experience God’s acceptance and his destruction of the power of sin over our lives. We then align with his Kingdom.
When you and I respond to Christ’s pardoning love, the burden of sin rolls off our shoulders. The apostle Paul experienced this firsthand. One day he was on his way to Damascus to harass the followers of Christ and suddenly he had a heart collision with Christ. That day Christ changed his identity. By implanting the grace of God in his heart, his sins were forgiven. He also received a new nature. As he began to study the word of God with new eyes, to spend intimate time with Christ, and to fellowship with other Christians, his nature changed. The Holy Spirit renewed him from the inside out.
Paul aligned himself with the word and Kingdom of God and that alignment produced in him a new identity. Instead of having a heart at war with Christ, now he had a heart at peace in Christ’s Kingdom. So when Paul heard about the turmoil at the church in Corinth, he wrote to them from his own experience, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creation, the old has gone, the new is here!
God begins the process of regeneration in us the minute we say yes to him. We are reconciled to him through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. Now you and I, reconciled to God, are called to share the Good News of the Kingdom of God.
In his teen years, the future St. Augustine was a very promiscuous young man. Some years after his conversion an old girlfriend saw him and yelled, “Augustine it is I” and he yelled back to her, “but it is not I” and kept walking. Augustine had become a new creation. The old self had died to the carnal pleasures, and he had become alive to Christ. Eventually Augustine became a priest, then the Bishop of Hippo and a great theologian. His alignment with the Kingdom of God radically changed his identity.
Almost everything we think and do depends on how we identify ourselves. Since the Fall, Satan has been trying to distort and steal our identity. Remember always, you are neither a mistake nor a nobody, an orphan, or powerless. You are who God says you are, and that’s the only thing that matters. Satan whispers you are a loser. God says we are more than conquerors. (Romans 8:37) Satan says you are guilty. God says we are forgiven. (Psalms 103:3) Satan says you are hated. God says we are loved with an everlasting love. (Jeremiah 31:3) Satan says you are an orphan. God says we are his children. (1 John 3:1) Satan binds you with his fear and torment. God says, “Fear not for I am with you.” (Isaiah 41:10)
Align yourself with the Kingdom of God and accept your new identity in Christ. Don’t let the world define you. Don’t let your mistakes or failures define you. Don’t let your past destroy your future. Let the love of God and his amazing grace implanted in your heart define you. You are a new creation, the old has passed away! Behold the new has come! (Zephaniah 3:17).
©2024, Jacqueline Leveron
When WWI ended, hundreds of shell-shocked French soldiers could not remember who they were. Faulty military records provided no help. How could those victims of amnesia be reunited with their families?
The French held an Identification Rally in Paris, which was announced throughout France. On the planned day, thousands of people gathered in a large plaza. One by one bewildered soldiers mounted the high platform and anxiously asked, “Please, please, can somebody tell me who I am?”
Behavior drives identity. Many times throughout our lives we will be asked, “who are you?” Or other times we may ask, “who am I?” The world defines us by our accomplishments or careers. We respond with I’m a doctor, a teacher, or a stay-home mom, but those are wrong answers. That’s what we do but not who we are.
The believers in Corinth were dealing with the same issue. (2 Corinthians 5:17-18) They were new converts and had yet to experience the transformation that the new birth brought into their lives. Through unmerited grace they, as with you and I, had become a new creation with grace implanted in hearts. We all eventually know and experience God’s acceptance and his destruction of the power of sin over our lives. We then align with his Kingdom.
When you and I respond to Christ’s pardoning love, the burden of sin rolls off our shoulders. The apostle Paul experienced this firsthand. One day he was on his way to Damascus to harass the followers of Christ and suddenly he had a heart collision with Christ. That day Christ changed his identity. By implanting the grace of God in his heart, his sins were forgiven. He also received a new nature. As he began to study the word of God with new eyes, to spend intimate time with Christ, and to fellowship with other Christians, his nature changed. The Holy Spirit renewed him from the inside out.
Paul aligned himself with the word and Kingdom of God and that alignment produced in him a new identity. Instead of having a heart at war with Christ, now he had a heart at peace in Christ’s Kingdom. So when Paul heard about the turmoil at the church in Corinth, he wrote to them from his own experience, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creation, the old has gone, the new is here!
God begins the process of regeneration in us the minute we say yes to him. We are reconciled to him through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. Now you and I, reconciled to God, are called to share the Good News of the Kingdom of God.
In his teen years, the future St. Augustine was a very promiscuous young man. Some years after his conversion an old girlfriend saw him and yelled, “Augustine it is I” and he yelled back to her, “but it is not I” and kept walking. Augustine had become a new creation. The old self had died to the carnal pleasures, and he had become alive to Christ. Eventually Augustine became a priest, then the Bishop of Hippo and a great theologian. His alignment with the Kingdom of God radically changed his identity.
Almost everything we think and do depends on how we identify ourselves. Since the Fall, Satan has been trying to distort and steal our identity. Remember always, you are neither a mistake nor a nobody, an orphan, or powerless. You are who God says you are, and that’s the only thing that matters. Satan whispers you are a loser. God says we are more than conquerors. (Romans 8:37) Satan says you are guilty. God says we are forgiven. (Psalms 103:3) Satan says you are hated. God says we are loved with an everlasting love. (Jeremiah 31:3) Satan says you are an orphan. God says we are his children. (1 John 3:1) Satan binds you with his fear and torment. God says, “Fear not for I am with you.” (Isaiah 41:10)
Align yourself with the Kingdom of God and accept your new identity in Christ. Don’t let the world define you. Don’t let your mistakes or failures define you. Don’t let your past destroy your future. Let the love of God and his amazing grace implanted in your heart define you. You are a new creation, the old has passed away! Behold the new has come! (Zephaniah 3:17).
©2024, Jacqueline Leveron
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