5) GROW IN YOUR CHRIST IDENTITY

Walk by Faith

Life is most meaningful when we become an adult. As an adult, we have the opportunity to live out our full potential that God has given us. Spiritual adulthood is the same. Our job is to grow up so that we can live the full Christ’s identity that is in us, the full potential that God has given us in Christ. The fullness of Christ is in us.

Colossians 2:9-10 “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.”

The fullness of the fruit of the Holy Spirit is in us.

Galatians 5:22-24 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

How do we grow in our Christ identity? Picture the infant in your mind again. How does he grow? He grows physically by eating, mentally by learning. He develops motor skills by practicing and exerting effort. That spiritual infant is you. We grow physically be feeding on the Word of God, mentally by learning from teachers in the faith and ultimately the greatest Teacher of all, the Holy Spirit. We take what we learn mentally and put it into practice to develop our faith skills.

Hebrews 5:11-14 “About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”

Philippians 3:12-15 “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.

Stop living life base on our feelings. Act like the Christ-person that we are. The fullness of Christ is in us. The full fruit of the Holy Spirit is in us. Start living life base on faith and our Christ’s identity.

Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

2 Corinthians 5:7 “for we walk by faith, not by sight.

“I have been crucified with Christ. I no longer live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith.” What does it mean to live by faith? Faith is not a feeling. You don’t feel faith. Faith is believing the Word of God for what it says and put it into practice. Do we believe that the full fruit of the Holy Spirit is in us? Well, by faith live it. Let’s take love as an example. We are conditioned to believe that love is an emotion and to love a dear brother or sister in Christ, we need to feel that emotion in us. But that’s not what a Christ-person is taught by the Word of God. This is not how the Christ’s identity operates. The Christ-person says, “By faith I will love you dear sister.” “By faith I will serve you dear sister, even if I don’t feel like loving and serving you.” Living by faith is believing that I am dead. It is not I who live, but Christ lives in me. By faith, I live this Christ’s identity. By faith, I see myself as a Christ-person even though I don’t feel so. When temptation comes my way, by faith, I say to myself, “That’s not me anymore, that person is dead.” By faith I identify with my Christ’s identity. By faith, I live the Christ identity that I am. This is how we train our body, which has been imprinted by decades of living according to the desire of the flesh. Put this into practice little by little. Remember we are infants. We need to grow little by little, but we will grow. What happens if we failed, and sin? Remember that we are infants, mere children. If we stumble and sinned, admit it to ourself and to God that we have sinned because we are children and we are learning and growing. That’s how God sees us: children learning and growing. When we fall, our heavenly Father doesn’t condemn us. He runs over and embrace us in His arm to comfort us. “Now there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1)…” That verse reflects how God sees us and who we are in God. We are children loved by God. There is no condemnation because there is no performance required. Our Father will pick us up, dust us off, and embrace us in love. Let this concept sink in. Meditate on this in your time with God. We inherited all of this by birth. Our Christ’s identities were given to us when we were born again. Now that we have seen how to grow in our Christ’s identity, let’s learn to rest in His awesome love.