221 Any Identification? Part Three

 

Extracts from Identification by Creflo Dollar

 

Most of carry a Driving Licence, Travel Pass, or Passport to produce when we are asked for identification, and this method or form of identity is generally accepted world-wide.   It is my purpose today to examine the subject of the Christian Identity,

an issue on which I have made but brief comment in recent messages. In fact I am writing Three Sermons on this subject which I have entitled ANY IDENTIFICATION?   Today’s message is the Third of those three.   So be sure to write me for your printed copy of all 3 sermons, absolutely free.

 

Today I want to help you understand more clearly the importance of your identity in Christ, and thus release you from the struggle of trying to live the Christian life in the natural, in the flesh, when in fact that life can only be lived in the spirit.   Many of Gods children simply do not yet know who they are – yet the amazing thing is that the Devil, and every demon in Hell knows who they are.   The only way that Satan can have any kind of victory in your life is when you remain ignorant about the way you are connected to Jesus. So while God knows who you are, and the Devils know who you are, today I want to ask you – do YOU know who you are?

 

You cannot see your Spirit, there is nothing in the natural that can touch your spirit. I can touch your body, I can shake your hand, put an arm around your shoulder, I can speak words that will touch your soul; even bring you to tears or to laughter, but I cannot touch your Spirit.   The only way that I can connect with your spirit is by sharing with you from the Bible the word of

God,- that will touch your spirit.     The Apostle Paul says in

2 Cor 3:18 “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass

( a mirror) the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord”.

   The Bible is like a mirror, when we look into it, it reflects what God sees we look like.   The mirror in your bathroom or in your hallway, reflects what you see you look like, and indeed what others see you look like, and whether you like it or not, the mirror cannot lie.   But Gods word, the Bible shows us what

God sees we look like. So how does God see us?

 

Jesus tells us in John 4:24 that

“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth”.

God is a spiritual being and I must first of all identify with Him as a Spirit being. We read in Genesis 2:v7

“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul”. So here we see the creation of man as a body and as a soul. One might say that we are essentially SOUL, and that that’s the real you that everyone knows, ( we say a goodly soul, a kind soul, a decent soul) with a body to make contact on earth, and a spirit to make contact with heaven. When we read that God “breathed”- the Hebrew word used here means spirit. In other words, God put in all of us the Divine, the God-like,

the Spirit.

The apostle Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:v23

“And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here Paul affirms this tri-partite constitution of which we all partake.

Now that being the case, in order for us to identify who we really are, as Body, or Soul, or Spiritual beings, we need to focus on functionality.   This body, that most consider YOU is not you, and as I’ve said before, it is only your house, your earthly home. When the real you leaves, (dies) we put that house in a box and put it in the ground.   The body is not the real you. The real you, is “absent from the body”, and according to the mirror of Gods word, “present with the Lord”- if you are a Christian. This is why the unbelieving world grieve so at death, for they have hope only in this life, in this body, they have no concept of spirit, for they have as yet no “revelation”.   Have you noticed how very different the funerals of unbelievers are to the funerals of believers? There is no comparison.

 

At death, the soul goes with the real you, because the Scriptures make that clear in several places. You will remember that when the Rich man died and was buried, and the poor man Lazarus also died and he was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom, yet there was at that time some apparent interaction between the two, but both of them appeared to have retained their memories of life. This puts paid to the reasoning that the memory is in the brain, for the brain was in the grave with their bodies, so I contend today that the memory is in the spirit. Read about it

for yourselves in Luke 16.

What I am saying is that the Soul goes with the Spirit, whether to Heaven or to Hell.   People don’t die, only bodies die. The spirit is at the core, the heart of a human being, and if you don’t believe this Biblical reflection, then I cannot help you. I am trying to show you who you are, but if you won’t accept what God says about you, you may go to your grave in ignorance,

and have all eternity to regret it.

 

While I continue to live in holiness, in happiness, in health, in prosperity, in fulfilment, in harmony with Gods will and way, you will continue to struggle with right and wrong, sin and judgement, pain and problems, and religion will keep you in bondage.   Christianity is not a Religion. Some don’t like me to say that, so let me explain.   All of listening me have a Father. You may be sitting beside him right now, and you may interact with him every day. Others may not know their Father, who may have walked out on them years ago, or have since died; but either way all had or have a human Father.   Our connection with him was not a religion – but a relationship.   I have another Father in Heaven, and I have a living, vibrant, loving relationship with him, its no religion and I walk with the Divine, and I function in the Glory, and I have the daily expectation of the supernatural, and I don’t play at Church?

 

This does not mean that I always get to see the “spectacular”. Just because God answers prayer in supernatural ways, those ways are often ordinary, and it is often only I who get to see the answers, but when God does do the spectacular it is often to show the world and the Devil that He is still God, and still the Boss, in control!   Yet in every day in amazing ways he leads me and provides for me and makes my life count for eternity. And may I say this lovingly, if you don’t see it, I can’t help you,

but God sees it, and that’s what matters to me.

 

Supposing I were to take an apple pie and give you a slice, that slice would be still apple pie on your plate, as on mine. If you were to take that slice of pie, and cut it in half and give it to your grandchild, that smaller piece would still be apple pie on their plate.   The dividing of it up, does not change what it is.

In the same way, when God gives us every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus, that blessing is never depleted, it is still blessing, and still more than enough for all of us.   When the Spirit passed from God and He put it in Adams Human Flesh, it was still Spirit, and you cannot deplete or kill spirit, for there is no death or decrease in God. A Spirit cannot die.   One day God will put us all together again, for he who is joined to the Lord is one Spirit. You are a spiritual being like God, made in his image and in his likeness. Satan and sin stole your likeness to him, but Jesus has restored that to you, and when you accept by faith Gods great Salvation, then you identify with God, part of you becomes Divine, you become like God; for “as He is, so are we in this world”. 1 John 4:17   You and I as Christians have come into a divine fraternity, a divine brotherhood. Hallelujah.

 

Allow me to develop this.

The Bible calls the real me, “the hidden man” 1 Peter 3:4, it also calls me “the inward man” Romans 7:22 WHY? – because it has not been revealed to the physical man.   So what I want to say is that you may not yet know me, even if you know me. For there is a spiritual integral part, component, transformer in my life that only God and I know about.   I hope that some clues to that life are evident in my daily walk and talk, but the Spirit in me, is the real me. I am a spiritual man, made and moulded in the image of Jesus, and already blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ, the Anointed one. The carnal, fleshy life cannot see it, it is only visible in the spirit. The carnal is dominated by what it sees, hears, smells, tastes and touches; and the progression of carnality is discouragement, sadness, loneliness, sickness, disease, lack, poverty and pain and that’s the progression, the path that leads to eventual death –

separation from God.   The carnal put confidence in the flesh, they listen to the world, they take in the ways of the world and the works of the world, and their confidence is not in God but in Men.   That’s why when the Doctor tells them that they have cancer, or the Bank Manger tells them that they are broke, they have no higher level of thinking, they are dependent on their circumstances and the folks, friends and family around them.

They believe only in what they see or what they feel or what they hear, and have no identity with their Spirit man, no identity with God and no identity in Heaven.   They end up suffering the things that they do not have to suffer.

 

You say to me “Pastor, I have sickness right now, what do I do?”

You move your focus off of that sickness (no matter what your body is saying), and onto the healing word of God. You believe and stand on the Word of God, your Spirit believes the word, and your faith draws that word from your spirit and you acknowledge out loud that healing is real in your body, that health and healing belong to you, that you carry Divine Health and Divine Power and right at that moment you are releasing from your spirit over into your body, and you receive and accept the benefit of it, and you will be healed, and you will recover.

If you don’t know who you are, your identity in Christ, then I am asking you to do something that you cannot understand and it will not benefit you. You must first know who you are before you can understand what you have. A prince must first take the title, before he can take the throne.  

 

What most of us have been trained (all our lives) to identify with – is sickness and medicine, and doctors and hospitals and tests and we have been schooled into thinking we were mere

bodies, (that was the mind set) but you are more than body you are soul and you are spirit.   We go to the gym to build our bodies, we cut our diets to enhance our bodies, yet we cannot keep destroying our bodies or neglecting our health and expect Jesus to fix us?     I cannot say that I will eat 20 sugar-coated doughnuts today and expect the Lord to take the weight off.   God does not suffer fools gladly!

 

As Christians we have neglected our spiritual health and well-being, because our identity was the picture on the passport or the driving licence. You are more than what your picture says you are. You are what God says you are!

I quoted 1 John 4:17 a moment ago, where John says “Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world”

(I’ve made mention of this is Part One)

What did we just read? “as he is, so are we in this world,” –

if you got that, you got the message of these three sermons on identity.   You see religion does not tell us this, the Bible tells us this, and your Churches may not tell you this, and many of your Christian friends and neighbours will not tell you this, but the BIBLE tells you, that “as He is, so are we in this world”.

 

Religion usually tells us that as He is so will we be when we get to heaven.   Religion tells us that we will be all cleaned up there, we will wear new robes up there, new shoes up there, we can dance and sing and shout up there, we can praise and pray and party up there, but its not the truth.   It is not a lie, but it is not the truth, for it is not the whole truth.   I like what one preacher said about this verse, he says “we are twins … identical twins” As He is, so are We – I love it!

 

Religion would say this is Blasphemy, or at the very least heresy, but that’s what the Bible says. “as He is, so are we

IN THIS WORLD”

here and now, as he is, so am I, so are you, This dear friends is the identity card, and the only identity you will ever need.

My flesh, my Body cannot be like Him in the world, my Soul cannot be like Him in the world, but my Spirit can be like Him in the world. Praise God. In this world, in this Church, in this pulpit, in this house, in this car, in this studio, in this room, I am like Him, that’s how God says it and sees it, its an identification from God. Most of us never struggle with the identification that our Mammy and Daddy gave us? When your parents gave you your name you didn’t struggle to accept it, to believe it; but when God gives you a name, when God gives you a Divine Identity, you struggle to believe it.   How do you think your Mammy and Daddy would feel if you denied in their presence who you were? How do you think your struggle with identity makes God feel?  

 

I have denied my identity long enough, No more.

My parents gave me the name David, and if you call me out loud in the street Tom, Dick or Harry, I will not respond to you, I will not even turn around, I only respond to my name and God has a name for us too, and he expects us to respond to it.   Turn now to Psalms 82 verse 1. This is one of those portions of scripture that if you approach it intellectually or academically

it appears to make no sense at all; but when the Spirit gives you revelation in the word, then that word makes complete sense to your spirit.   Theologians and scholars have struggled with this Psalm for centuries, but there is no problem about it in my mind. This is a Psalm of rebuke, God is rebuking the concept

of unjust judgement, – how do you judge yourself?

lets read: Psalm 82

“God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods“.   That word got my attention right there.

I thought and was taught that there were no Gods but one, God only.   The Hebrew word used here ( for gods) sometimes refers to Angels, but in this instance, it refers to the Godly, and if you look down at verses 6 & 7, you will see more clearly that this is more probable. v6 “I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. v7 But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.”   These comments show that the context cannot be about Angels since they do not die and even

if they did, could not die as men.   Did you notice that God (capital G) judgeth among the gods (small g)   That’s what I meant when I spoke earlier of the Divine fraternity.   God is revealing to us that we have in Christ become of the “god-kind” and are no longer considered by him to be of the “human-kind” but without this identity, we will go to our graves like men.

 

Without identity, we will live and die like mere men, when we were “mighty through God”.   God has made us “mighty” as gods (with a small g) while He is the Almighty (with a capital G) in fact this congregation of the mighty in verse one is in my opinion a congregation of both the heavenly, and the earthly, the angelic and the godly, or the righteous. And have we not seen in my last sermon from Ephesians 1:10

“That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, (The Angels?) and which are on earth; (The Righteous or Godly?) even in him: (emp-dhg)

 

We need to understand as I have said in the other messages on this subject that knowing our identity in Christ, is all about Jesus, not about us. When we know who we are in Jesus, he must increase and we must decrease.   All that is bound up in the Divine will and purpose for both earth and heaven, is about Jesus. Jesus is Lord, and before him, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Lordship, in earth, in hell and in heaven. The Lamb, Gods Lamb, the Lord Jesus is all the

GLORY in Emmanuel’s Land. God is saying to you today, take another look into the “mirror” of my word, and see how I see you; then adopt that identity and walk in it. Praise God.

 

NOW THIS FINAL WORD

 

When Jesus Christ was caught up and sat down to secure our place POSITIONALLY

The Holy Spirit got up and came down, to secure our place

CONDITIONALLY

If there are times when you feel your condition does not fully align with your position, then ask the Holy spirit to help you

to fix your identity.

But remember that God cannot work on your condition, unless you maintain your position.

 

God Bless You. AMEN