Identity (def) - the fact of being who or what a person or thing is. For the believer, it is important to know what we are capable of when empowered and identified by our Heavenly Father.
While walking through the forest one day, a man found a young eagle who had fallen out of his nest. He took it home and put it in his barnyard where it soon learned to eat and behave like the chickens. One day a naturalist passed by the farm and asked why it was that the king of all birds should be confined to live in the barnyard with the chickens. The farmer replied that since he had given it chicken feed and trained it to be a chicken, it had never learned to fly. Since it now behaved like the chickens, it was no longer an eagle.
"Still it has the heart of an eagle," replied the naturalist, "and can surely be taught to fly." He lifted the eagle toward the sky and said, "You belong to the sky and not to the earth. Stretch forth your wings and fly." The eagle, however, was confused. He did not know who he was, and seeing the chickens eating their food, he jumped down to be with them again.
The naturalist took the bird to the roof of the house and urged him again, saying, "You are an eagle. Stretch forth your wings and fly." But the eagle was afraid of his unknown self and world and jumped down once more for the chicken food. Finally, the naturalist took the eagle out of the barnyard to a high mountain. There he held the king of the birds high above him and encouraged him again, saying, " You are an eagle. You belong to the sky. Stretch forth your wings and fly." The eagle looked around, back towards the barnyard and up to the sky. Then the naturalist lifted him straight towards the sun and it happened that the eagle began to tremble. Slowly he stretched his wings, and with a triumphant cry, soared away into the heavens.
It is so difficult to soar as an eagle with the eagles when we are distracted by the world and the way it identifies us. God's actions to reach out to us and give us our identity are important to note and I have listed some of our most notable characteristics below.
We are bought at a price. In our modern-day, post-Christian society we tend to leave out terms like "blood bought" or saved, but in establishing our identity it is God who identifies us this way. God paid the price through His Son, Jesus, and we must never forget what was done to make us who we are. Some results of realizing this truth are as follows: A faith that always believes and always hopes A heart that forgives and forgets. A life that craves God's Word. And those are the "easy" ones to identify.
We are vessels of honor. 2 Timothy 2:20 In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver but also of wood and clay; some are for special purposes and some for common use. 21 Those who cleanse themselves from the latter will be instruments for special purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work. When the world tells us that we have no value and cannot soar above the chicken pen, we need to realize that God has empowered each of us for a greater purpose, and living for Him is that purpose. God spoke these words to the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 40:28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.29 He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.30 Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall;31 but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. To be what God has called us to mean our mind, heart, and spirit are set on giving Him total control of our lives because we cannot soar without His strength, and also without His wind. God's number one command for us is the following Mark 12:30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ When we begin to realize the power in our relationship with Jesus His love overwhelms fear, distractions, and confusion and He sets us on a very focused path that is straight and very narrow, but that path opens up a whole new way of thinking as we remember who we are in Jesus.
We are equipped for greater things. Our enemy lies to us to keep us from realizing God's potential in our lives, but the Holy Spirit confirms all of God's truth in our hearts and calls us to greatness....in Jesus. Never allow humanistic ways of thinking to compromise the power of God working in your life. Those views are so dominant today in many dead churches and that is because the enemy has convinced us that we have no value. My value is this: The perfect Son of God died as a criminal and He "gave" His life me and then He sent the Holy Spirit to guide me every moment of my life. Here is how I honor that sacrifice as an honored vessel. I spend time with Him in prayer and get to know Him better every moment of every day. I study who He is by studying the Word of God because Jesus is the Word of God. I share the Good News of salvation to a lost and dying world. Jesus is my foundation and my life force and He gives me wings to FLY, not grovel. It is an open afront to the Savior of my soul to minimize His effect on my life by explaining away my value to Him. Our first step in becoming who God wants us to be is to humble ourselves before Him and ask Him to lift us up for His glory. Peter said it this way in 1 Peter 5: 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. When we humble ourselves under God's mighty hand, we come away with an "anything is possible" kind of attitude. Jesus shared this great truth with the disciples about salvation when rich young ruler had tried to present "his" righteousness as a reason to inherit eternal life, and Jesus presented that his righteous acts were not enough. Jesus continues in His explanation in Matthew 19: 23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” 25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?” 26 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." If there was anything at all we should get from this, "we can do nothing apart from God" but we can "soar with the eagles with God." Don't leave off the full way that God identifies those who are His and never undercut the truth that you are a "child of God.
Vesselogical Out,
David Warren
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