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Discussion Forum : Articles and Sermons : How Do You Identify Yourself by Sylvia Pearce

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pilgrim777
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Joined: 2011/9/30
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 How Do You Identify Yourself by Sylvia Pearce

I really like this. There is enough truth here that it is worth posting. Jesus Christ is our identity. He is the only One that makes us worth anything. (Pilgrim)
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What you identify with, you are putting your hope, faith, trust and your confidence in.

BODY
Body minded (“The Mind Set On The Flesh”)

Lie: I identify myself as my body: “I am my body”--my appearance is who I am. Either I am beautiful and that is who I am, or I am average, or I am ugly and that is who I am. I am my hair, my eyes, my skin, my figure, my physique, my legs, my face, etc. I am what I wear whether designer clothes or Wal-Mart specials. If I am well, physically, then that is who I am, or if I am sick, that is who I am. I think that I am my physical endeavors and accomplishments—swimmer, golfer, dancer, gymnast, musician, surfer, singer, couch potato, fatso, a bowler, fisher, jogger, etc.

True: My body is God‟s precious means of outwardly expressing the Spirit, BUT IT IS NOT WHO I AM!

SOUL
Soul minded (I Am how I feel and think)

Lie: I draw my identity from the soul realm. I am how I feel—I am depressed, so that is who I am. I am feeling happy, so therefore I am happy today. I am my emotions. One day, I‟m high, the next day I‟m low. When I am high, then I am Spiritual, but when I am low I am not so Spiritual. I am my likes or my dislikes.

True: This soul-life is the treadmill life. I liken it the gerbil‟s wheel--always spinning but never getting anywhere.

Lie: How I mentally think is who I am—whether I have an IQ of 160 or 70, my intellect is me. My thoughts, my idea‟s, my understanding and my imaginations are who I am. I am smart, or average, or I am just plain stupid. I'm measure by my own thought processes, or I can‟t seem to figure life out. Either way I am my intellect.

I identify myself with my personality--I am my personality type, I am even tempered, I am short fused, I am shy, I am fiery, I am quiet, I am talkative. I am my personality.
I am my possessions, my money, my things, and my family bloodline. I am my status in life. I am successful, or I am a failure. My car, my house, or boat or my job security makes me who I am.

My security and identity comes from where I attend church. — I say, I am charismatic, I am a Baptist, I am from the Vineyard, I am a Presbyterian, a Catholic, or I am non-denominational. Therefore, I am my Spiritual affiliation.

I am what I accomplish and perform spiritually, or I am my ministry. I get inner brownie points from doing good works. I identity myself with my good works, I even boast about them.

I identify myself with my relationships—my husband, my wife, or my children. What I could not accomplish myself, I will do it through my children. I have validity because my husband is successful, or I am not valid because my wife is fat and not so beautiful. My children are smart, so I identity myself as a good parent. My children have embarrassed me, so therefore I am not a good parent. My security and confidence is drawn from my family life.
I even identify myself with my sins—I am Gay, I am an alcoholic, I am an addict, I am a liar, I am a lustful, I am hateful, or “I am a carnal person sold under sin,” as Paul says. Truth: We may commit sins, and we must not be in denial, but my sins are not who I am. They might be what I am doing but they are not who I am.

I am my profession; what I do for a living is who I am. I am a teacher, I am a judge, I am a doctor, I am an electrician, I am a stay-at-home mother, I am a janitor, I am a computer expert, I am an unemployed failure, I am a school drop out, I am a Harvard graduate, I am a nurse, I am a pilot, etc. I draw my identity from my work place, or from my nationality—I am a Ford worker, I am an American, I live in a mobile home, or I live in a large house.

True: No matter what you do or where you live, these criteria DO NOT DEFINE WHO YOU ARE. When we live by this false identity and draw our security from this realm, we are always needy, always dissatisfied, and self-centered, because nothing is ever enough to satisfy us. We are left with an insatiable hunger, …ever looking for fullness, and completeness, but never finding it.

We live by self-effort and self-improvement, and are striving to improve either ourselves, or the people around us. We are always trying to fix, change, or re-arrange ourselves, or our world. We are in lack and need and are always trying to be in control of our lives, or the lives of others. Life eludes us, people fail us, and we are miserable.

As long as we falsely think that we are our “souls,” then our independent soul-life (which is “The sin that dwells in us” in Romans 7) reigns in us and dominates us. This false life is Satan reigning in our souls and having dominion over us. This lie keeps us in bondage to a phantom-separated-independent-self. When this phantom-I (the self-perceived “me”) is rightly seen and identified as Satan, the true culprit, then we can wield the sword of faith, by the authority of the cross, and trust Christ who has already set us free from Satan's control. Now, we are on the road to freedom with the resurrected Spirit life of Christ in us. We “put on Christ,” our new nature, shedding the old phantom-I and consider that false self dead, buried, and resurrected with Christ.

Our bodies and our souls are precious and wonderfully God given as the means for expressing the Spirit in a myriad of various forms, BUT OUR SOULS AND OUR BODIES ARE NOT WHO WE ARE. I can never say that I am my bodily appetite, or soulish desires. And if I walk in this realm or identify my soul and body as me, then I, as the Bible promises, “shall be condemned and I shall fulfill the lust of the flesh” because I am having confidence in my flesh, instead of the real me, which is Christ in me. But if I dare to identify myself and walk as a Spirit Being united to Christ and therefore clothed in precious soul and body as only a means of expressing the Spirit, then as the Bible promises, “We shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.”

Jesus said, unless you loose your independent soulish life, you cannot find your true Spirit-life as Christ. And Paul testifies of this stripping of his outer identity when he said that he “suffered the loss of all things, in order that he might win Christ.” He says that he has no confidence in his flesh appearances, accomplishments, or status in life. When he did have confidence in flesh, he was living under the bondage of Satan‟s performance based acceptance and law bound self-effort.

SPIRIT
Spirit minded (focus on Who I am in Spirit).

True: In our Spirits, Christians are joined to Christ, who is our life and the very power source that we live by. We are Christ in our human forms and that is my (our) true Spiritual identity. I am the actual body of Christ and my spirit is married to HIS Spirit so we are one. This oneness is somewhat like a piece of iron lit on fire. The iron and the fire share their essences with each other and become one. The fire so interpenetrates the iron that the iron almost disappears, yet the fire has no form without the iron, and the iron has no reality without the fire. This is true inter-dependency, and oneness.

When I identify myself as a human spirit joined to, and indwelt with the Holy Spirit, I can dare claim all that Jesus is as me. “I am peace, because the Prince of Peace lives in me.” “I am righteous, because HIS righteous is MY righteousness.” “I am power because the resurrection power of the universe lives my life.” I am holy, because the Holy Spirit is my life.” “I am love, because, Jesus my life‟s source is a lover poured out to others.” “I am a co-heir with Jesus, because I have inherited Him and all that he is. I am the bride, for He is my new husband.” “I am accepted in the beloved, I am chosen, I am justified, I am sanctified, I am glorified, I am a New Creation, I am a king and a priest, I have royal blood, I am a true Israelite, a Jew, I am a priest after the order of Melchizedek” who has no beginning and no end. I am eternal.

I have access and rights to the Throne Room “I can ask anything in His name and He will give it to me and it shall be done.” “I can say unto any mountain in my life, „Be Thou Removed,‟ and it shall obey me.” I am now one with God who creatively “calls the things that are not as though they were.” All power in heaven and earth has been given unto me, for “I live by the faith of the Son of God.”

My soul and body are anointed by the Holy Spirit and express the fruit of the Holy Spirit. My precious humanity is rightly used in righteousness. My humanity comes alive eternally and is rightly accepted and appreciated. I have no condemnation. “I have overcome the evil one” and “the evil one touches me not.” I have special Spiritual gifts, and I have all power, authority, and dominion in heaven and earth, and “I have all sufficiency for all things.”

AMEN
The Human is Tripartite
(I Thes. 5:23)
Body
Outer bodily expression

Soul
Emotions, feelings, likes/dislikes Personality, intellectual, Reason

Spirit
Heart- Love (Agapa)
Mind-(Knowing)-We know that we know
Will—Facility to receive on a believing level

 2012/3/28 19:58Profile





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