Knowing Your Identity

by  Dr.Creflo Dollar

Do you know who you are? I’m not talking about who you are because of your parents, your background, or your upbringing, but I mean, do you really know who you are in Christ? Most people know who they are in the natural realm as it relates to their family and upbringing, but when it comes to their true identity in Christ and what that entails, they don’t have a clue.

Often, people have a hard time identifying with God because they relate to their physical, natural identities and the things they can perceive with their senses more than they do with Him. God made us in His image, and when we accept Jesus as our Lord and personal Savior, we become one with Him. This means that, from a spiritual perspective, we are just like Him! Knowing who we are in Christ is the catalyst for walking in the power of God and demonstrating that power to the world.

Because the knowledge of who we are in Christ is so vital to our confidence as sons of God, it is the area in which Satan will consistently attack us. In fact, he attacked Jesus in the area of identity when He was fasting in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights. Matthew 4:1-3 says, “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.”

When Satan tried to question Jesus’ identity in the wilderness, Jesus responded with the Word of God. He didn’t have to prove anything because He knew who He was! That is the same way we should respond to the devil when He comes to attack our identity in Christ. We should always remind Him of what God has said about us and about him. Jesus replied, “It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” (v. 7). When Satan realized that Jesus was not moved by His attack, and that He knew who He was, the Bible says he left Him alone.

Jesus wasn’t the first one Satan attacked in the area of identity. In the Garden of Eden, he also attacked Adam and Eve. He made a statement that suggested to them that they weren’t who God had made them to be. In Genesis 3:1-5, Satan deceived Eve into thinking that she wasn’t like God, which was the opposite of the truth. God had created Adam and Eve in His image, which meant that they already were like Him. They allowed the voice of the enemy to get them to doubt who they really were. As a result, they took the bait and fell into his trap.

By constantly looking into the mirror of God’s Word, we are able to maintain a consistent consciousness of our identity in Christ. The Word will tell us exactly who we are, what we look like from God’s perspective, and how we are to act as sons of God. It will also reveal to us any areas of our lives that may not line up with God’s Word.

God is a spiritual being, and He has made us in His image. When we become born again, we carry the very nature of God on the inside of us, which makes us little “gods” or smaller extensions of Himself (Psalm 82:1-8, AMP). Therefore, we should identify with the identity that God has given us. Philippians 2:5-9 shows us the attitude we should have as Believers:

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”

Even though we possess the power of God on the inside of us, if we don’t embrace the same mind-set that Jesus had about His identity, for our own lives, we will never be confident enough to walk in that identity. From now on, begin to see yourself as Jesus saw Himself—a spiritual being who possessed the same ability as His Father. Renew your mind to who you really are and declare it every day. You will send the devil running in the opposite direction!