Who or What Am I?

The only way to know who you are, is to know who Christ is in you.
That seems simple enough, and seems like a message almost everyone has heard at some point before, about 'identity' and 'believers' authority' and a host of other relevant things. Nevertheless applying and walking daily in this truth escapes most of us. And I am not referring to what I call an "intellectual knowledge" which most of us have of who we are in Christ, but of a deep spiritual understanding. This is the level at which our spirit is infused with a revelation of the full truth by God's own Spirit. It is at this depth that we become truly formidable to the enemy because this comprehension touches our deep spirit and is not moved by outward attempts of the enemy to confuse, discredit, or discourage us. It is a level of knowing, primarily, God's love as more absolute and more enduring than anything else.

For a long time I could, like most of us, say things like, 'God loves me' and 'God watches over me', God has a plan for my life' and so on. As far as I knew I believed and knew these statements to be true, but for the longest time I hadn't known that I was yet without an actual revelation and absolute conviction of that truth to my spirit.

What I'm attempting to describe is not the same as issues of apparent lack of self-esteem, feelings of unworthiness, nor immature wavering between 'He loves me-He loves me not'. In fact, it's so insidious, so deep-rooted, and so subtle that I did not even realize that I had a problem. After a long time it occurred to me that there must be some motive underlying the way I found myself making decisions, the way I prayed, the things I prayed, the way and the degree to which I doubted, the situations I found myself in time and time again, the things I would attain to, the things I would be afraid of, the intensity with which I wanted certain things...and on and on.

Certainly there had been patterns constructed in my early history that facilitated that relative impermeability of my spirit to these spiritual realities. But despite the way in which each thing may have started I found that the main thing was that I had walked in a path of deep underlying and wrong motives for a long time. These were motives not direct and not apparent, but perhaps like cousins, I could say they were the kind 'once' or 'twice removed'.

I believe God's process of dealing with such things does not necessarily include walking us back into the past to 'deal' or 'make sense of' any of why we are the way we are or any such thing. I believe that all God needs to do is reveal the problem and perhaps where it started, and then He will fix the problem if we surrender to Him 100% because in fact He is the only One who can. For me that involved a collaboration whereby He revealed and I confessed in at least two stages:

First, He revealed and I confessed the motives. Second, He revealed and I confessed His truth.
Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed in Him,
"If you ABIDE IN MY WORD, you are my disciples indeed.
And you shall KNOW THE TRUTH,
And the truth shall make you free."
(John 8:31,32 - emphasis added)

The Greek word for 'know' as used here is "Ginosko" [pronounced 'ghin-oce-koe'] which means, "to perceive", "to understand", "to recognize", "to gain knowledge", "to realize", "to come to know". This type of knowledge has a starting point and refers to a process of realization. It refers to attainment and understanding of the truth by personal experience. 'Knowing the truth', also implies absolute faith that the truth is 'the truth' which indeed can and will make us free.

And what is the truth?
God's word.

Over a period of time the Lord had engineered quite a few events to bring me to the place I needed to be to see very clearly that I had a big problem and what it was. And then He spoke in quite a few ways to assure me that He wanted to give me a "new vision" of who I am in Him. And then, He showed me how.

God led me to the book of Ephesians and the Holy Spirit seemed to 'work overtime' just teaching me, illuminating, to a depth I had never before grasped, the truth that was written there. The words themselves became as real as flesh, though they were in fact Spirit and life and made their entry to a place in my spirit that had before been impermeable. Every night for a period of weeks I would read the chapters out loud often. If I didn't read all six I would at least cover chapters one to three. Then I copied and read verses out loud, substituting every we/us/our with personal pronouns, I/me/my.

I really believed, now understood, and so confessed continually - what God said/thought/felt about me, what He destined/intended/called/purposed me for, how He had provided/prepared/equipped me, and above all that He had loved me with an unfathomable love and had Himself made me accepted in His Beloved Son. I realized I lacked absolutely nothing I needed. I was destined for more than I could ever deserve. The Spirit of the Living God dwelt in me. I was absolutely called, chosen, justified, and loved.

It is a necessary and freeing thing to know without any limitation, bias, or lack, who we are in Christ and who He is in us. It frees us up to experience "holy abandon" in every sense of the word. It empowers our prayer; it changes our reactions and expectations towards circumstances and people. It empowers us with a level of knowledge that scares the enemy because we can effectively make null and void a host of plans formed against others and ourselves when we realize the authority we have in Him who lives within us. It forms the spirit of a warrior within us, whereby we go about wielding the word of God with skill and 100% precision as we are led by the Spirit of God, not only in the reach of our personal lives, but also in the bigger picture for God's purposes over all the earth.

The revelation I had received to my spirit still continues to renew my mind. It is an endless process, which by that phrase does not signify a struggle, rather, a continuous advancement, from glory to glory.