TweetYou must own your identity before you can possess your destiny. Jesus said that it is out of the
overflow of the heart that a person speaks, and acts. Behavior follows what is in the heart. Every great spiritual victory is won on the battle ground of the heart. This is why the Proverb writer said, “Above all else, guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life.” (Proverbs 4:23) The heart is the control center of a person, Biblically speaking – it is not a weak, sentimentality, but the very core of a person. We must guard our heart.
Religion focuses, too often, on behavior modification. But, Jesus did not come to start a religion. Jesus came to revolutionize your relationship with your Father in Heaven. When we put our faith in Christ, we get a new heart – this was God’s promise to the people of Ezekiel’s day. Ezekiel 36:26-27:
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees.”
When we trust Christ, God accomplishes this work in us. He gives us a new heart, and a new Spirit – His Spirit is in us. We now have what it takes to live a godly life. But, Paul tells Timothy, “Train yourselves to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:7). Training is hard work. Becoming a spiritual mature, godly person, who has a deep relationship with God, and exhibits Christ-like behaviors, is hard work. But, Paul is not calling us to be religious. He is calling us to do the hard work of the heart. The hard work is contending for the truths that God declares over our lives. We must own our identity before we can possess our destiny.
For example, God has destined us to love. When Jesus was asked what the most important commandment was, he said we are to love God with all our being, and we are to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37f). It is God’s plan for our lives that we would be loving. But, John said that “we love because He first loved us.” We must own our identity as deeply loved by God before we can possess our destiny to love like Jesus. I have to contend for the heaven’s realities on earth. The truth in heaven is that God loves me. But, on earth, sometimes, I don’t feel very lovable. The hard work of becoming godly involves less behavior modification plans, and more contending for heaven’s reality. So, I read and memorize portions of Scripture that declare the truth (like Romans 8) of God’s love. I meditate on those. I ask God to reveal the truths of those passages to my inner being. Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks, the person acts.
God has also destined us for intimacy with Him. It is why we were created. Paul prayed that we would have revelation from heaven so that we would know God better (Ephesians 1:17). God wants us to know Him, and know Him better. But, we must own our identity as children of God, before we can possess our destiny as intimate friends of God. The Father lavished his love on us, so that we could become the children of God (1 John 3:1). If we struggle to see ourselves as dearly loved children of God, because of our childhood wounds, or bad behaviors of the past or present, then we will never believe that we could be intimate friends of God. We will think we need to clean up our lives before we can be acceptable to God. But, the gospel says that we couldn’t clean up, God cleaned us up, and lavished His love on us, so we could become the children of God, in intimate relationship with Him. I love my kids. I want to be close to them. That’s normal parenting behavior – and that is the heart of the Father for you!
God also created us to be pure, to have characters like Jesus. But, we must own our identity as saints before we can possess our destiny as Christ-like people. Too many of us view ourselves in light of earth’s realities – we see ourselves as royal mess-ups. We would never use the term ‘saint’ to describe ourselves. But, God does. A saint is one who has been washed clean by the blood of Jesus, through faith in Christ. To deny our identity isn’t humility. To deny our identity is unbelief. We must contend for our identity in Christ, so that we can live out our destiny for God’s glory! Renew your mind for the glory of God (Romans 12:1-2)!
Photo Credit: amanky via Flickr
I wish the Bible said that physical training was of no value! Then I’d have a real excuse, a biblical excuse.
Seriously, though, I love that, as you said, “we now have what it takes to live a godly life”. It reminds me of a verse in 2 Peter 1 that says, “His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue”.
I love that when His Spirit takes up residence in us, we don’t need to look anywhere else for anything else…He has given us everything we need!
Realizing that, or claiming that, is often the hard part.
If it makes you feel any better, Eric, physical training is of no value. Whenever I do it, everything just gets worse.
Does it ever stop being a fight to claim God’s love? I never forget that I am loved, just fall back into the habit of thinking I am unlovable. It is a conscious decision to feel God’s love for me on some days. I yearn to be closer to God so much, but it feels like a battle to get there. Is this typical for us here on earth?
Hi Beth,
It is a battle. There is a real spiritual enemy, and he seeks to oppose your spiritual progress. He tells you lies – that God isn’t good, that God can’t love you if you do that, that you will never change, that you are no good, that you aren’t lovable, etc. We have to renew our minds, and it does take effort.
But, the good news is, I have discovered over the years, I have made progress. I am much further along now then I was when I began the journey. Sometimes, Beth, when we measure our own progress we look only at the hear and now. How am I doing today? But, it is better to look over the long haul. Look at where you were five years ago, or three years ago, are your further along than you were?
You will stumble and fall. When you fall, get up. Take your eyes off your failure, bring that to the cross, to Jesus, for forgiveness. Admit it fully, and receive grace. Then claim the promise of His forgiveness. Don’t let the enemy beat you with your failures. Hold tight to the promises of God. Remind yourself of them often. That’s how you get up. Every time you fall, get up again. When you do that day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, over a lifetime, you will see that you are making progress. You are sinking the love of the Father deeper into your heart, it is becoming more of a foundation for your life.
Blessings to you,
Rob
Thank you for the encouragement!