In our world today, identity theft is epidemic. There are those who take your good name in order to steal what is yours. At the same time they are taking what is rightfully yours, they are destroying your name, reputation and trust that you have built over time.
We have a spiritual identity as well, that is vulnerable to theft. When we come to Christ in faith, God hands us a new identity free of charge. God declares us righteous and in good standing, based on who Jesus is and what He has done on our behalf. We enhance our understanding and integrity in time as we start to live our lives based on our new identity. Who we really are is who God says we are. It is similar to the credit bureaus that report our credit. It doesn’t matter who we claim to be, reality is based on who the credit bureau says we are. God says who we are no matter what the world, satan or our own distorted view of ourselves claims our identity to be.
Satan cannot afford to let our identity be based on who God says that we are. This is where he and the demonic realm step into to steal our spiritual identity.
John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
Satan and his troops are even more sinister than earthly thieves. His main goal is to discredit each believer in Jesus, in order to ultimately discredit God. If satan can get us to live out of a false identity by lying to us about who we really are he can trap us into life long patterns of sin and unbelief.
We ultimately live our lives based on who we think we are. If we believe that we are actually redeemed and loved by God and stay fixated on that as reality, our lives will start to reflect that reality. If we believe that we are not really worthy of what Christ did, we will need the self-medication of sin to keep us comfortable in our refusal to step out in faith and actually live out who God claims we are and has called us to be.
Faith is a choice of which information we will base our lives on.
Romans 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
We will either choose to believe the healing words of Jesus that takes our sin-scarred souls and redeems us and declares us righteous or we will believe the words of our enemy and live out of a guilt ridden, sinful identity. The course of our whole lives comes down to the quality of the thoughts that we cling to in this life.
2 Corinthians 10:5 We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,
Satan will steal our spiritual identity and leave us with broken, guilty, shame-based lives. But in the spiritual realm, we can choose to not be a victim. We can cling to Jesus as if what He tells us is actually true or we can cling to the lies of satan. One of the main reasons we cling to the lies of satan is because we are afraid to actually show up in life and become all who God is calling us to be. We give up our spiritual identity without much of a fight. Jesus wants so much more for us than that but it requires our diligent living out of the true identity He has given each one of us.