The Lie That's Quietly Stealing Your Identity

Something is already telling you who you are, and it is probably lying. That is the uncomfortable starting point, because the way to find your identity in God is not to add a new voice on top of the old ones. It is to name the one that got there first. Your identity is received. You do not achieve it. You can stop auditioning for acceptance before God breathes something over your life, because He has already spoken. The question is whether you believe Him or something else.

For most of us, something else is doing the talking. Our insecurity talks. Our history talks. The people whose opinions we cannot stop measuring ourselves against talk loudest of all. Saul of Tarsus knew that pressure. He was for God without actually knowing God, fully bought into a way and a system that told him this is how you do it and this is what it is all about. Jesus challenged that identity constantly and consistently, so much so that even after He ascended, Saul had to be blinded on a road before God could get his attention.

Three questions come out of that story. They are simple to ask and slow to answer, and together they surface whose voice is actually shaping you.

Question One, Whose Voice Is Shaping You?

A few things tend to rob us of our God given identity, and insecurity is near the top of the list. We get nervous about what people think. We get scared. We start operating in pleaser mode. That is the enemy's voice, and he wants to steal and kill and rob you of your identity.

Standing against those insecurities means standing on the fact that Jesus is real, that He is who He said He was, and that He came, died, and rose again for your sin and mine. We do not live under the punishment and the weight of that anymore. We live in the grace of God. I do not need to please man. I am here to please God. That security has to be the motivator. Anything less and we are believing a lie.

Can God Use Someone With a Past Like Mine?

Yes. That is the whole point of Saul's story, and it is the point of yours.

The lie of history sounds like this: if you only saw what is behind me, you would understand why God could not use me in the future. No. God can redeem anything and anyone at a moment's notice. He can change a trajectory. The real question is not whether your past disqualifies you, it is whether you are fully submitted to Him.

If you are submitted to your history instead, then the lie you are believing is that God cannot, and now you are into a sovereignty issue. He can do anything He wants. He can heal you. He has forgiven you and will continue to forgive you. These are promises in Scripture, so walk in them. Do not let your history tell you who you are and therefore how it is going to be. Say instead, I know who I was. I was lost, but now I am found, and today I follow Jesus, and He determines my identity.

Why People Pleasing Robs Your Identity

Living for the approval of the people around us will rob us too, and this one hurts to say, because I am guilty of it.

I walk around sometimes concerned about what people think of me as a leader, as a pastor, as a friend, when in actuality my responsibility is to lead and to step forward. It is not as easy as it sounds. Even with the position of pastor on your shoulders, it is not as easy as it sounds to walk out and be confident. The volume of emails, the stories that travel from place to place, the reality that every word spoken from a stage is recorded and can be replayed in case you say something wrong, all of it is nerve wracking. It can rob me of the identity God has given me, which is to proclaim His truth.

Question Two, What Do You Need to Leave Behind?

Go back to the story. Paul had to leave his entire status and his entire reputation. Everything he had built his life on, he had to walk away from. Let that sit for a minute. Everything.

A God given identity almost always demands that you leave something behind in order to pick up something new. Abraham was told to leave his homeland and go to a land God would show him. Moses was told to leave the wilderness and the hiding and step into the identity God had given him. A prophet was told to burn his plow and become God's voice to the nations. Peter was told to leave his nets and his vocation as a fisherman and follow Him. Matthew was told he was no longer a tax collector, he was a chosen disciple. Leave.

Why New Wine Needs New Wineskins

There is a principle in Scripture about wineskins. "And no one puts new wine in old wineskins, for the old skins would burst from the pressure, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine is stored in new wineskins so that both are preserved" (Matthew 9:17).

Now think about that principle as it pertains to your identity. Walking in a God given identity means knowing that the new identity will not fit in the old way of life. You are going to have to step away from something in order to step into something. You do not get to carry all of it with you and hope God fits into your bag somewhere.

He says, I want to completely change and fill your life, so I need you to dump that stuff out. I am going to bring purpose into those things. I will redeem some of them. I am definitely going to forgive them. I actually allowed all of it to happen in your life for a skill set I am going to need you to have over here. But I need you to empty the bag, bring nothing but open hands, and be ready to receive the identity I place in your life. A new identity does not fit the old way of life.

Question Three, What Does God Say About You?

Not what people say about you. Not what you say about you. If you believed about yourself what God believes about you, you would fall to your knees and worship.

A man centered, man given identity will lead you down the wrong path every time. Look at where Saul's did. "Saul was uttering threats with every breath and eager to kill the Lord's followers" (Acts 9:1). There was an eagerness in him, a zeal for persecuting the church. He was living out a wrong pathway with total conviction, which is exactly the danger.

Here is the thing. You are never going to live consistently beyond the identity you believe. You will either believe what people give you, what you give yourself, or what God gives you. Everyone has a God given identity, and when that identity becomes secure, that is when we grasp it, and that is when true obedience to God becomes possible. We are walking by faith and not by sight. We are not walking in a defined past, we are walking in a perceived and understood future.

You do not need to audition for the acceptance of God before He breathes identity over you. You walk in acceptance. Your identity is received, not achieved. God breathes it onto you. Tim Keller once said that if you make work your identity and you succeed, it will go to your head, and if you fail, it will go to your heart. Your identity is not in what you do. It is in what God says about you.

How Do You Hear God Speak Over Your Identity?

There is an exercise in the book Living Fearless where Jamie gives a long prayer and asks you to get quiet, read it, and write down the first thing that comes to mind. What do you hear the Spirit speak over you?

It took me some time. Then I wrote the words, I feel like God has called me to proclaim. I cannot tell you the sense of fear and anxiety that came with it, coupled with joy and peace. The identity spoken into my life at nineteen had to do with the church and with worship and music. I never dreamt in a million years that I would preach for a living. In fact, I have probably done it more as a duty than as a joy. But God is changing those things in my heart, because I want to walk in a new identity.

Not long ago, two phone calls with friends from a previous season sent me to a bad place, because I was craving a man made, hoped for life. I have had to acclimate my mind and say no, I am who He says I am. The opportunities in front of me are the ones He places there. I do not walk through doors because I network really well and figure it all out and make my plans. I will make a plan, but God directs my steps, according to Proverbs 16:9. I am walking as a proclaimer of truth and of God's identity, and that is who I want to be for the rest of my life.

So get quiet with the Lord and ask Him. Not for a moment, but for minutes and minutes and minutes, sometimes hours. Can you be still long enough to let the voice of God and the power of His Spirit say, this is the word, this is the identity I want you to walk into?

Where to Go From Here

Learning how to find your identity in God is less about discovering something new and more about clearing out the voices that got there first. Name the lie you have been believing. Name what you need to leave behind. Then get quiet long enough to hear what God says about you, and build your life on that.

True identity begins and ends in Jesus.