Most Christians never come to appreciate who they are in Christ. From the time of  
our birth we are programmed by our environment and the people in our lives. How  
we grow up and the influence of the people around us shapes our ideas and our beliefs  
about who we are and our own identity. For the many who have suffered rejection,  
abandonment, physical limitations, or even abuse from their earliest childhood,  
entrenched in their understanding of themselves is an attitude that says:
 
I don’t measure up! I am unlovable! I have no value!
 
Even people who have grown up in a healthy environment and have experienced  
love from the very beginning have been victimized in some way by the enemy’s  
deceptions and lies.
 
Almost without exception the people whom I have counseled have had some form  
of unscriptural belief the enemy has used to keep them in bondage. We need to  
recognize our faulty beliefs, to renounce them as lies, and to reprogram & renew  
our minds with the truth…..  
 
But the Counselor (Comforter), the Holy Spirit (Ghost),  
whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all  
things and will remind you of everything I have said to  
you.   (John 14:26)
 
 
I)  I PHYSICALLY ALIVE, SPIRITUALLY DEAD
 
Genesis 2:7 says:
 
The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the  
ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,  
and the man became a living being.
 
Adam was alive in two ways.
 
First he was alive physically – his soul was in union with his physical body. There  
wasn’t a separation … that came after the fall.
 
Secondly, he was alive spiritually – his soul was in union with God
 
In Genesis 2:16-17
 
And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free  
to eat from any tree in the garden;  but you must not eat  
from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when  
you eat of it you will surely die."
 
 
 
 So Adam disobeyed God, and he ate of that tree.
 
 Did he die physically?  Did he die spiritually?
 
 
Of course we know that he didn’t die physically, although the process of dying began  
right then and there, but he died spiritually, and we see it in a dramatic fashion that  
is shown by His separation from God. They were thrown out of the Garden.
 
From that time on, everyone born into this world is physically alive but spiritually  
dead, separated from God. Before coming to Christ, we had neither the presence  
of God nor a knowledge of His ways, so we lived independently of His ways
 
Ephesians 2:1 says,
 
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions  
and sins.”
 
What does it mean that we were dead? Were we dead physically? Of course not, but  
we were separated from God!  It means that we were dead spiritually.
 
 
Jesus came to remove that separation.
 
He said in John 10:10:
 
I have come that they may have life, and have it to  
the full (or more abundantly).
 
 
Many people believe that eternal life is something they receive when they die, but  
1 John 5:11-12 says:
 
And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life,  
and this life is in his Son. 12He who has the Son has life;  
he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
 
 
Every Christian is alive in Christ right now. To be alive means that your soul is in  
union with God. All through the New Testament you will find over and over again the  
truth that you are in Christ or that Christ is in you.  It is this foundational truth that  
provides us with our basic essential identity.
 
 
 
 
 
II) OUR NEW IDENTITY      
 
Colossians 3:10-11 says:
 
We have put on the new self, which is being renewed  
in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is  
no Greek, or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised,  
barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all,  
and is in all.
 
You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,  
for all of you who were baptized into Christ have  
clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew  
nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you  
are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:26-28)
 
In other words, how we formally saw or identified ourselves no longer applies.  
When asked to describe themselves, people usually mention race, religion, social  
distinctions or cultural background. But Paul tells us that none of these apply  
anymore, because our identity is no longer determined by those things.
 
Our identity lies in the fact that we are children of God and we are in Christ.
 
A Christian gains forgiveness, receives the Holy Spirit, puts on a new nature and  
gets to go to heaven. A Christian, in terms of his or her deepest identity, is also  
a saint, a child born of God, a divine masterpiece, a child of light, a citizen of  
heaven.
 
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a  
holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may  
declare the praises of him who called you out of  
darkness into his wonderful light. 10Once you were  
not a people, but now you are the people of God;  
once you had not received mercy, but now you  
have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:9-10).
 
 
No matter what your past, no matter what your experiences have been, it does not  
and can not affect the heritage that you now have in Jesus Christ. You are a child of  
God, and by accepting Jesus Christ into your life, you have appropriated the truth  
of 2 Corinthians 5:17:
 
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;  
the old has gone, the new has come!
 
 
 
 
III) LEARNING OUR NEW IDENTITY
 
We are no longer products of our past.  If we belong to Christ & are in Christ, we are  
products of Christ’s work on the cross.
 
Remember, when we were dead in our trespasses and sins, we had learned to live our  
lives independent of God. Our identity and perception of ourselves were formed and  
programmed into our minds through the natural orders of this world.
 
That’s why Paul says in Romans 12:2:
 
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world,  
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then  
you will be able to test and approve what God's will  
is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
 
Renewing our mind does not come naturally, there is no automatic ‘delete button’  
that erases all of the past programming. We have to consciously know the Word  
of God so that we can understand who we are from God’s perspective.   A  
interjection here when it comes to knowing the truth – many people claim to know  
the truth – they have wild and wacky interpretations pertaining to Scripture. It is  
important to realize that when studying the Bible and reading the Bible that we  
first ask the Holy Spirit to provide us with the accurate meaning of the words  
we are reading.
 
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved,  
a workman who does not need to be ashamed, and  
who correctly handles the word of truth.             (2 Timothy 2:15)
 
Remember it is the Holy Spirit who leads us into all truth!
 
 
And who are we?
 
As 1 John 3:1-3 says,
 
How great is the love that the Father has lavished on  
us, that we should be called children of God! And this  
is what we are! The reason the world does not know  
us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we  
are children of God, and what we will be has not yet  
been made known. But we know that when he appears,  
we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.  
Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself,  
just as he is pure.
 
 
 
 
IV) WHO WE ARE DETERMINES WHAT WE DO
 
 
The most important belief we possess is a true knowledge of who God is. The second  
most important belief is who we are as children of God, because we cannot consistently  
behave in a way that is inconsistent with how we see ourselves. And if we do not see  
ourselves as God sees us, then to that degree we suffer from a wrong identity and a  
poor image of who we really are. If we continue  to get our identity from the world  
around us, then we deny the power of God at work within us.
 
It is not what we do that determines who we are. It is who we are that determines  
what we do.
 
We are not “sinners” in the hands of an angry God!  
 
Doreen and I want you to clearly see what the Bible teaches – that every child of  
God is a saint held securely in the hands of a loving God.  Far too many Christians  
do not know who they are as children of God. They have no personal, internal sense  
of their identity in Christ.
 
 
 
 
 
V)  SATAN DOESN’T WANT YOU TO KNOW
 
 
It is easy to forget our position in Christ. Why?  Because Satan doesn’t want you to  
be free.  
 
How do you live each day consciously aware and active as a child of God?
 
First and foremost through Bible reading, prayer and fellowship. If you do not know  
what the Bible says, how can you expect to counter the lies of Satan? It is not good  
enough to think you know what the Bible says, you need to know what the Bible says.
 
I am concerned about those who have never discovered their identity in Christ or
 the freedom He brings.
 
My God will meet all your needs according to His  
gracious riches in Christ Jesus.  (Phillipians 4:19)
 
Our tendency is to think only of our physical needs, but the critical needs are the  
“being” needs, and they are the ones most wonderfully met in Christ.
 
His divine power has given us everything we need  
for life and godliness through our knowledge of him  
who called us by his own glory and goodness.  (2 Peter 1:3)
 
Peter says “knowledge.”  Notice he doesn’t say anything here about what we think the  
Bible says.
 
 
Through these he has given us his very great and  
precious promises, so that through them you may  
participate in the divine nature and escape the  
corruption in the world caused by evil desires. (2 Peter 1:4)
 
The world around us has identified these needs but is so pitifully inadequate to meet  
them. I don’t want to have to go thru life as a believer in the awesome God and His  
love expressed thru Jesus Christ, trying to pick myself up my own bootstraps….. trying  
to do everything in my own strength.
 
Our prayer for you is that you will be able not only to tell the world around you that  
Christ has come to meet our most critical and foundational needs -  identity,  
acceptance, security, and significance – but that you will experience this at the most  
inner level of your life.
 
Because you are sons of God, God sent the Spirit of  
his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba,  
Father.’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and  
since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.
(Galatians 4:6-7)
 
 
You see it is so important that you discover & know your real identity in Christ &  
realize that it is Christ that sets you free.
 
 
 
THERE REALLY IS FREEDOM AND LIBERTY  
 
Paul says in Galatians 6:1:
 
Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ  
has made us free, and do not be entangled again  
with the yoke of bondage.
 
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand  
firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened  
again by a yoke of slavery.  (Gal 5:1 NIV)
 
 
Far too many people believe the lie that Satan tells them -----  He is a liar and  
desperately wants you to not know the truth of God’s Word or FOR THAT MATTER  
TO understand it.
 
You are not who you in Christ because of the things you have done, you are in  
Christ because of what He has done. He died and rose again so that you and I  
could live in freedom of His love.