My God-given identity

 

Judges 6:11-12

Then the angel of the LORD came and sat beneath the great tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash of the clan of Abiezer. Gideon son of Joash was threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites. When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, “The LORD is with you, mighty warrior.”

We are all well acquainted with the story of Gideon. We find him here, hiding away from the Midianites, threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress so that they will not find him and steal the crop from him. Imagine his surprise when the Angel of the Lord (whom many ancient interpretations identify as the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus Christ) addressed him as “mighty warrior” when he was acting in totally the opposite manner!

This is such a good illustration of the way God gives us our identity. He does not see us as we are in the present, but as He purposed us to be. He bases His identity of us not on our past, but on our future, on that which we are to become.

There are more examples of this. Think about Abram, whose wife Sarai could not conceive, and yet God named him Abraham which means father of the multitudes. This only started to come into fulfilment twenty-five years later when Isaac was born. Joseph means to increase, and yet he had to face rejection from his family, false accusations and years in prison before living in the increase God had planned for Him all along. Peter means the rock, and before Jesus’ resurrection and the giving of the Holy Spirit, Simon (whom Jesus renamed Peter) was a passionate believer but not a very stable man. Yet he became the strong anchor and rock for the fledgling church, just as Jesus called him to be by changing his name years before.

Unlike God, we form our identity based on who other people say we are, and upon our life experiences up to now. This process starts at a very young age, and our enemy skilfully uses these adverse experiences to keep us from walking in our true God-given identity. Why? Because if we did, we would be the greatest threat to the kingdom of darkness, basically unstoppable!

Start proclaiming your identity in Christ today. Believe that you have a new identity and act as if it were so – it is not enough to just say it - fix your mind and focus on this new person you already have become. Keep exchanging your old habits/traits/beliefs for the new ones God has given you, even if it takes a few years for you to see them fully developing!

Pearls to ponder:

Read your Bible and start writing down what God says about you. Meditate on these truths and start proclaiming them over your life. Here are a few examples:  I am faithful. I am God’s child, adopted into His family. I have been established, sealed and anointed by God. I am holy and blameless. I am forgiven. I am raised up with Christ. I have peace. I have access to the Father. I am sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. I have been justified. I belong to God.

Who I am

Discernment

 

Rev 22:18-19

And I solemnly declare to everyone who hears the words of prophecy written in this book: If anyone adds anything to what is written here, God will add to that person the plagues described in this book. And if anyone removes any of the words from this book of prophecy, God will remove that person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city that are described in this book.

In the broader Christian community, this verse is often wrongly applied to mean that no one is allowed to either add or remove anything from the books in the whole Bible.

But verse 18 of our quoted section above refers to “in this book” and “what is written here”, clearly limiting the warning to the actual prophecy given in Revelation, and verse 19 further defines this limit with “words from this book of prophecy”.

If we were to interpret it as applicable to the total Bible, then John himself would be in trouble, because he wrote his other two books in the New Testament after he wrote Revelation, therefore adding to Scripture! Apart from the scrolls on which the Old Testament were preserved, most of the New Testament was still being written, and no complete book of the whole Bible existed yet.

Even a similar warning from Moses in Deut 12:32 “Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it refers only to “Whatever I command you” and not to the Bible as a whole.

We definitely do not want to be guilty of either distorting, erasing or altering the text as given in the Bible. But the misapplication of the quoted verse to the whole of Scripture sometimes generates many misleading assumptions. For instance, people we know who studied Apocryphal books (a collection of biblical or related writings that were not included in the officially recognized canon of the Bible) were told that they were wrong to do that, as they were “adding” to the Bible. This of course is not true.

Another totally wrong deduction would be that you cannot make notes in your Bible. In answer to that I can only stress that Jesus Himself and Holy Spirit are the revealers of the basis of our faith, and the text itself is a tool that leads us to more understanding of Him – so go ahead and make notes, highlight verses, jot down all new revelations Holy Spirit gives you!

Pearls to ponder:

We are living in times where deception is increasing at an alarming rate. The sad part is that the church itself sometimes brings deception across our path. We have to start grounding our basic beliefs in truth and practise our discernment. Make sure that what you are told about the Bible is actually what is written there – do not take anybody’s word for it, read it for yourself – Holy Spirit promises to teach you (John 14:26). Make time, you will be greatly rewarded!

Discernment

Hedges

 

Ecclesiastics 10:8

He that digs a pit shall fall into it; and him that breaks down a hedge a serpent shall bite.

We build hedges around gardens and properties in order to protect them, to keep enemy forces who wish to harm us and our loved ones, outside. In biblical times, hedges were built around vineyards to keep insects, bugs, rodents, thieves and birds outside and prevent them from stealing the harvest. They mostly built these hedges in layers:

A stone wall was first erected, and beyond that, a thick layer of thorns. Right before the harvest, a wall of fire was created to keep the insects and birds away. What a beautiful picture of our Lord’s protection! Our Father is our Rock of Ages, firm, stable, unchanging. This is our source of peace and security. The ring of thorns on the head of Jesus caused bleeding, and His blood bought the everlasting protection of our spirits and souls. The wall of fire at harvest time was necessary because the lovely aroma of the ripe grapes would attract all who wished to devour it. So too, just as we are positioned to reap great blessings in our lives, every demon and foul bird is clamouring to get through the hedge and destroy it. But Holy Spirit brings His fire to surround us!

As in the natural, so it is also in the supernatural. We know that the serpent represents evil, and that in order to keep our enemy at bay, we need to build spiritual hedges around everything pertaining to us.

How is this accomplished? We have to firstly believe that God’s hedge of protection is already promised to us who diligently follow Him and trust in His name, and then act on those promises by declaring and praying this truth. Here are a few examples:

Ps 34:7 For the angel of the LORD is a guard; he surrounds and defends all who fear him. I prefer to interpret this ‘angel of the LORD’ as Jesus Christ Himself, as it is found throughout the Old Testament, and as He is the commander of the Host of Heaven, He can summon any number of angels to intervene in every situation I face. It is in keeping with the promise He made to His followers upon ascending to heaven, written in Matth 28:20 ... And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Being in a church with leadership who stand up for the truth of the Word and are Spirit-led, brings protection, because God’s blessings rest upon such a gathering. People praying in unity also build hedges, remember that God would have changed the destiny of Sodom if Abraham could find only ten men living righteously – we have to join hands and start praying for our governments to make righteous decisions!

Pearls to ponder:

The above verse also refers to the outcome if we break down those hedges. Then the serpent can enter in and kill, steal and destroy. Carefully walk around the perimeters of your spiritual territory and look for two things:  Is there a gap in that fence; and, am I walking on the right side of it? Am I doing what I like, or what I ought?

Jesus be a fence all around me

Not a hoof left behind

 

Ex 10:24-26

Finally, Pharaoh called for Moses. “Go and worship the LORD,” he said. “But leave your flocks and herds here. You may even take your little ones with you.”  “No,” Moses said, “you must provide us with animals for sacrifices and burnt offerings to the LORD our God. Our livestock too must go with us; not a hoof is to be left behind….

In the natural, this was control concealed as concession. In the spirit, this means only partial deliverance, with pieces of the soul still in chains - you can honour your God but leave something behind in Egypt. Moses understood this immediately, therefore he responded with: “not a hoof will be left behind!”

We are called to die to self and surrender everything to our God. If we leave one hoof in the enemy’s grip, we are not totally free – do not leave your worship in the world’s grip, do not withhold any part of your devotion, do not let the enemy dictate your obedience, do not tolerate any idolatry in your life.

Idolatry? But I do not worship idols? Beloved, putting anything in a higher place than God in your life is exactly that – idolatry. And the sad fact is that we mostly do not recognize that we are doing this. Take the cell phone as an example.

How do most of us interact with that handy little device? We jump up and run to it when it rings – it could, after all, be an important call? Our attention is immediately drawn to it when we receive WhatsApp/email/SMS/Twitter/X/YouTube/Instagram alerts, even if it intrudes on precious time spent with loved ones. We carry it close to us at all times, some even holding it in their hands everywhere they go. Literally everywhere. We sometimes wear it as devices on our wrists or in our ears. We pick it up upon awakening. We scroll late into the night. When we need advice, we run to Google/AI/etc. We play games on it when we are bored.

Can you see that slowly, over time, the cell phone has started stealing our time spent with God? Imagine the deepening your relationship with Him would undergo if you did all the above-mentioned things with our Abba, and our Lord Jesus Christ, and with Holy Spirit?

Pearls to ponder:

Start being intentional with how you use your cell phone. Decide to make time daily/weekly/monthly to be without it, completely. This can be at worship times; at the dinner table; during family time 5-7p.m.; whenever you are visiting someone. Get out in nature or read a book, phone on silent. Decide on the time at night after which you will not be looking at your phone any longer and keep yourself to it. Put a timer on your phone when you play games so that you do not play longer than you intended to. Decide to not reach for your phone first thing in the morning, but to read your Bible first. The ideas here are given as examples, figure out what works best for you – but be intentional, decide and DO.

Credit given to Steve Porter

Idols fall