SHILOH MESSENGER - January 2017
















Restored Identity

“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” 2 Corinthians 5:17

I always like to do a personal assessment of how I finished the previous year. I believe that The Lord has me to do this in order to gauge my effectiveness. As I look back I believe that The Holy Spirit revealed to me that He is pleased with my first Love for Him, my wife, family, friends and ministry. He also identified that there was an area of my life that needed improvement. The Holy Spirit revealed to me I needed to love the ‘others’ like Jesus. The most resounding scripture verse for me to Love more is 1 John 4:12. “No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.” The Lord highlighted this area of my life so that I could represent Him as a true son of The Kingdom. Just what the verse says, God wants us to express Him in order to manifest His Love so we can be identified as True sons and daughters of the Kingdom of God.

I have learned that as I love people and honor them The Holy Spirit gives me His Grace for it to be expressed with compassion. Anything that The Lord as asked us to do requires His Grace. Grace always empowers. “But whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out his special favor on me—and not without results, yet it was not I but God who was working through me by His Grace,” 1 Corinthians 15:10. Often in the classroom the students will ask me questions about the Bible. There are questions about Grace. I explain to them that The Holy Spirit lives in us to superintend our lives in order to live holy and blameless lives. God did say, “Be Holy for I am Holy” (1Peter 1:15-16). He would not command us to do something He did not give us Grace to do. I have experienced His Divine Grace that empowers Christians to live righteous, holy lives. This is the Divine Life that is given to every believer in Christ (“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” Phil. 4:13) Again, it is The Holy Spirit in you that empowers to live a righteous life (Rom. 8:11).

As I carefully analyze how I finished 2016 and my assignment in loving people with the Love of Jesus I noticed a paradigm shift that has radically changed my perspective in doing life. Certainly it did not happen overnight nor weeks, but years. I have discovered that continued fellowship with The Holy Spirit brings empowerment to accomplish what I was designed to do. I know that in my mother’s womb I was skillfully crafted, and all my days were fashioned for me that I might discover my True Identity (Ps. 139:16). Wow! What a powerful revelation about destiny and the Heavenly Father as Creator. I have discovered in yielding there is a Divine Exchange (“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come, 2Cor. 5:17). This exchange is transforming me into a man that loves God and people. Notice, that I have described it as progressive, as I yield in order to discover all the hidden treasures in Christ.

My life is not the same. I have been delivered from 23 years of drug abuse, mental torment and living insecure, because of an identity crisis. My mountain of adversity was my insecurity. My profile was that I was a failure at life. But early in my childhood I was taken with regularity to Church. When I was eight years old I encountered Jesus. I received Him as Lord, but generational gates were used by satan to question God’s Love for me. Traumatic events took place in our family to cause chaos and division. These events were demonically inspired, to bring heart ache so a coping balm would be applied to alleviate the emotional pain. This coping balm I used was Heroin, Cocaine, Jack Daniels and Marijuana. I am not an isolated case, because its not just people medicating themselves. In every walk of life thru out our world satan uses his schemes to deceive people about their true identities. It is an illusion that damns people, but not without a cause (*a reason for an action, to bring about an effect). The cause behind the illusion is to mar (*to ruin the beauty or perfection of something) the image of God (Gen. 1:26-28) on every human being. This identity problem causes our fallen world to be an orphaned planet and produces people who look for love and comfort in the creation instead of “The Creator who is blessed forever, Amen” (Rom. 1:18-25).

Our response to this tactic for the New Year and throughout our time on earth is found in Ephesians 5:1-2, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” I am convinced when we imitate God as sons and daughters we are powerfully endowed with The Holy Spirit to reap a harvest of souls (Matt. 9:35-38), because of the commissioning by Jesus to go into all the world and preach The Gospel (Matthew 28:18-20 & Mark 16:15-18). This mission given to every believer has authority to reconcile the sinner back to God so that restoration can begin to restore the True Identity of every human being. The Fathers Heart has long suffered with humanities sin for generations and He is now close to calling time to relinquish its assignment. We cannot coward down to a vanquished foe that Jesus has defeated (Col. 2:15). Our imitating Jesus in Love and virtue destroys evil (Rom.12:9-21). Every person needs to be loved with the Heavenly Fathers Love. He has anointed us and appointed us to love. One of my favorite well known Pastors has said, “We owe every person an encounter with Jesus.” Well said, Pastor Bill. I’m forever grateful to The Lord for saving me and revealing my True Identity so I can Love and be loved. It is who I am. In closing I believe The Lord is saying this to us, “And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the Day of Judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world,” 1John 4:17.

 


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