A Deeper Walk With Jesus: A True Identity

In October 2007, Abraham Abdallah, a 32-year-old former dishwasher, pleaded guilty in a New York court to masterminding the biggest identity theft attempted so far. He was attempting to fraudulently gain over $US 80 million. He had 800 fake credit cards as well as 20,000 credit card blanks in his possession, and had managed to steal the identities of Steven Spielberg and Paul Allen (co-founder of Microsoft). He had also gained the credit records of Warren Buffett, George Lucas and Oprah Winfrey.

In the US in 2002, an estimated 700,000 people were victims of identity theft, were stripped of their savings and their credit ratings, thrown into disputes with banks, loan companies, stockbrokers and even governments because their identities had been stolen and put to criminal use. Can you imagine what it is today?

The 2013 Identity Fraud Report released in February 2013 by Javelin Strategy & Research reports that in 2012 identity fraud incidents increased by more than one million victims and fraudsters stole more than $21 billion, the highest amount since 2009. The study found 12.6 million victims of identity fraud in the United States in the past year, which equates to 1 victim every 3 seconds.

A person's identity is a valuable thing.  Actually, since 1970, more than 7,500 witnesses, and over 9,500 family members have received new identities as part of the Witness Protection Program offered by the US government.4

Our self-identity goes right to the heart of who we are.  Here are some questions that people ask that are mostly to do with self-identity.

Who am I?  What's so special about me?  Why do I even exist?  What makes my life worth anything?  How can I make my life count?  When I leave this planet, will it make any difference at all that I ever lived?  All of these questions go right to the core of who we are, our self-identity.

And because of this, you can bet that our self-identity is an area the devil will mess with big-time.  One of his major strategies is to cause us to draw our identity from wrong sources.

Things that are important in this world are a bad source of self-identity

1 John 2:15-17 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. (16) For all that is in the world; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life; is not of the Father but is of the world. (17) And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.

Do not love the things of this world because they are passing away.

2 Cor 4:17-18 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, (18) while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

There it is again: The things of this world, the things that are visible, are only temporary; but the unseen things of the next world are eternal.

So it's useless getting our sense of identity, our sense of worth, value or importance from the things of this world.

Remember, we are to be JESUS.   We are to become like Him and take on His identity.  This is why we are called “CHRISTIANS”.

Blessings,

Ric