22 July 2014 by Kim Yung CM-
False identity is at the heart of many struggles. How many of you actually know who you are? If someone were to come up to you and ask, “Who are you?” what would your answer be? The answer would be different for every individual. For example, I am a father or I am God’s daughter and so on.
“One of the questions you have to ask yourself is, who do you think you are? This question is a life changing question. If you know who you are, this question will shape your identity, so that people will know that your life is fashioned after such a thing. When you know who you are, you will know what to do!” shared Pastor Kenneth Toon who recently preached at New Life, Puchong on the 13th of July 2014.
The yearning to be a part of a pack or a group is very much part of being human. It is however important to find a balance of maintaining your own identity while mixing with other’s. Your personal identity (the way you see yourself) is often shaped by your early experiences in life. Perhaps your parents or other people said things to you as a child that made you doubt your worth. Maybe you were rejected or abused.
To find yourself, you need to find God and know what He thinks you are. Ignoring God leads to an empty life. We can try to fill our lives with different things. But because we were created in God’s image, we long to be with God. That’s why we can’t find happiness outside of God.
Blaise Pascal, a Christian Philosopher once quoted, “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.
For we walk by faith [we regulate our lives and conduct ourselves by our conviction or belief respecting man’s relationship to God and divine things, with trust and holy fervor; thus we walk] not by sight or appearance. (2 Corinthians 5:7)
Who does God say you are?
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
(Genesis 1:26-28)
The above Bible verses taken from Genesis are the words that God spoke in the very beginning of time.
“You are made in God’s image. You were not picked up from any garbage, any ‘pasar malam’, or anything like that. I reject that curse over your life in Jesus name! because you are made in God’s image regardless of who you think you are,” he shared.
Everyone who is made in the image of God is able to receive a revelation from God.
“All of us can hear from God,” said Kenneth.
Our identity of who we are and who we are going to be has already been planned out from the day we were in our mothers’ wombs. All we have to do is to listen and receive from Him, so that we don’t have to struggle so much.
“The problem is we don’t hear and that’s where we become wrong,” he said.
When making decisions in life, the first person you should see is God and not your friend,” said Kenneth. This is a mistake that many people make.
To get to know God better, you need to read the Word of God so that you will have a concrete personal relationship with God and know Him, and no one can budge you in your faith or tell you lies without you knowing what the truth is.
“Be contented and seek God. God has given you an identity and that identity is yours and yours alone, nobody else can take it away. You are not more valuable than the person sitting next to you even if that person has ten gifts and you have one gift, do not envy, you are still valuable.
“If you are the only person on earth, Jesus Christ will come and die for you. That’s how much you are worth!” shared Kenneth.
Saturate your mind with the truth of God’s Word. It’s filled with reminders of His unconditional love for you. God says you are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14). He says that nothing can separate you from His love (Romans 8:35). Don’t let the enemy steal your identity. You are God’s masterpiece and you need to believe it!
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. (Romans 8:35-37)
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