The life of a Christian is NEVER independent of Jesus Christ. It is being constantly and consistently connected with Him, identifying with Him every step of the way. It is being self sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency.

“I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me [I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me; I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency].” (Philippians 4:13 AMPC)

One thing that we all need to put as top priority is to do just like what Mary did when Jesus was in their village where Martha welcomed Him into their home.   Martha was going around in circles, over occupied with preparing the meal, but Mary sat down attentively before the Master Jesus absorbing every revelation He shared.   As Martha interrupted Jesus’ and Mary’s fellowship, demanding  that Mary should get up and help her out, Jesus answered her, “Mary discovered the ONE THING most important by choosing to sit at My feet.  She is UNDISTRACTED, and I won’t take this privilege from her.” (Luke 10:42 TPT)   In the Kenneth S. Wuest Expanded Translation, it says, “Mary chose out for herself the GOOD PORTION, which is such a nature that it shall not hastily be snatched away from her.”

To identify means to think of something as being the same as.   To identify means to know Who we are identifying with.  To identify ourselves with Christ, we need to know Who He is.  We need to have a revelatory knowledge of what He is speaking.  It is essential for us to know Him both in knowledge and experience by the power of His revealed Word.  It is a necessity for us to know who we are in Him, Who He is in us, what He has done for you and me, all because of His great love for us.  It is necessary for us to know Who He is to us, so we can be a conduit of Who He can be to others.  Indeed, freely we receive from Him, freely we give to others.   Absence of knowledge of this revealed and relevant truth, His Word says, “people perish due to lack of knowledge, rejection of knowledge and forgetting it” (Hosea 4:6).  I believe this is the reason why Jesus’ commendation of Mary’s option for the “one thing” that matters most to her is of vitality.

Progressive revelation comes every time we set aside time in His presence.   Every revelation received is like an added brick established and positioned to complete this temple of the Holy Spirit, you and I, for it is He Who perfects that which concerns us.  It is not about us, but it is all about what He is speaking and doing to us, with our arms outstretched in surrender to His Lordship.  

We live because Jesus is alive in us in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. We live because He is always speaking personally to each one of us in ways perfectly cut out for our heart’s reception. No one knows us better than Him Who is resident in us. More often than not, when He speaks directly and specifically to us, when a revelation is downloaded straight into our hearts, no one else needs to explain it. The Holy Spirit makes it so plain, palatable and acceptable to our spirits to receive the Word that is spirit and life, and this changes us from the inside out.

One of David’s secrets being a man after God’s own heart was also this ONE thing. 

“One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek, inquire for, and [insistently] require: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord [in His presence] all the days of my life, to behold and gaze upon the beauty [the sweet attractiveness and the delightful loveliness] of the Lord and to meditate, consider, and inquire in His temple.” (Psalm 27:4 AMPC)

Dwelling in the house of the Lord, beholding and gazing upon His beauty, meditating, considering and inquiring in His temple speak of connectedness and intimacy with God.  It is making Him be a part of our very being.  It is making every fiber of our being be one with Him for He dwells in us, making His home in us and manifesting Himself in and through us.  It is making our every thought captive into the obedience of Christ, submitting ourselves to the One True God,  Who is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Who knows it all, Who plans it all and Who is our all in all.

Identity Crisis is one of the major challenges that people face.  Everyone desires to be loved, accepted and approved.  The world measures it by looks, by position, by possession, by ability, by being of common interest, to name a few, and these create separation and division among the brethren when standards are not met.  A cookie-cutter qualification needs to be achieved, otherwise one becomes an outcast.

The redemptive solution to this identity crisis that this world has defined and destroyed most people is to know what eternal life signifies.  It is not just life after our bodily death, although it plays a bigger role for the fact that our earthly life’s longevity is nothing compared to eternity, but it definitely includes the kind of life that we live here and now.  The Bible’s says, “Now this is eternal life: that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.” (John 17:3)  Our Identity in Christ, indentifying ourselves with Him, is the key to overcoming identity crisis.

When we get born into this world, we simply exist with earthbound passions and desires.  But, when we come to know and receive our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ into our hearts, we become new creations in Him.  As we come to know Him deeper and deeper day by day by the renewing of our minds that comes from hearing and hearing by the Word of God, our faith in Him gets developed and muscled up that gradually sanctifies our passions and desires. 

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:17-19)

Our new creation identity in Christ allows us to define ourselves by the life-giving and hope-filling Word of God, not by the wrong things that we have done in the past nor the noisy opinion of this world that fastens us to who we used to be, doomed and hopeless.  Only the world remembers who we were, God does not.  He said that our lawlessness and unrighteousness He remembers no more.  He threw them in the sea of forgetfulness when we were washed by the Blood of His only Begotten Son, the Perfect Sacrifice once and for all.  “And by His one perfect sacrifice He made us perfectly holy and complete for all time.” (Hebrews 10:14 TPT)

As we submit to this revealed Word, we resist the accuser of the brethren who is constantly up to condemning us in spite of us being saved by our Savior Jesus Christ. The battle lies in our minds, but it all boils down to which voice we listen and pay attention to with our heart’s intention to obey. Will it be the saving roar of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Jesus Christ, or condemning voice of the enemy? “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.” (John 3:17)

Therefore, we are called to, “Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around us, but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how we think.  This will empower us to discern God’s will as we live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in His eyes.” (Romans 12:2 TPT)

The more we identify ourselves as His beloveds, the lesser we crave for the world’s attention and affection.   The more we anchor ourselves into the truth of  being welcomed into God’s loving embrace at all times, now and forever, the lesser the effect of this world’s rejection of us.  How amazing is His grace that the Perfect God can love imperfect people like us through Jesus Christ, while in this world, imperfect people hardly accepts imperfect people and expect them to perfectly fit to their standards to be accepted?  Thanks be to God Who always causes us to triumph over this world’s identity crisis when we are in Christ.

How wonderful and liberating it is to know that we do not have to prove ourselves to be accepted by God in and of our own ability?  It is by grace through faith.

“Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented Himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put His love on the line for us by offering His Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to Him.”  (Romans 5:6-8 MSG)

Our oneness in Him, with Him and through Him by the power of His finished work is what makes us whole.  Jesus is the Prince of Peace.  In Him we find our lives with nothing-missing, nothing-broken, nothing-lacking as we live by faith.  Truly, the just shall live by faith (Romans 1:17). What He paid in full with payment totally remitted 2000 years ago at the cross, leaving nothing unsettled, He made available for us to partake, explore and experience.  

Our lives are no longer our own when we identify ourselves as His.  He who created and formed us knew us before the foundation of the world and said,

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by your name; YOU ARE MINE.
 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you.
When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned,
Nor shall the flame scorch you.
For I am the Lord your God,
The Holy One of Israel, your Savior .. (Isaiah 43:1-3)

 In Him, the life that we live here on earth we live by faith in the Son of God Who loved us and Who gave Himself to us.  He came that we may have life in abundance, to the full, till it OVERFLOWS.   This means that Who He is to us, when He fills and floods us with the richest measure of His divine presence until we won’t have any room to contain Him, we become like Him to others.  We become light as He is the Light in us.  We become peacemakers as He is the Perfect Prince of Peace in us.  We become a blessing as the Source of all blessings dwells in us.  We become hope carriers as He is Christ in us, the Hope of glory.  We become vessels of love because He is Love.

 “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”  (John 15:12)

When Jesus gave us this commandment, He did not stop just to say “love one another!”  He did not leave us helpless, without His support.   He knew that apart from His love filling and flooding us, it is impossible for us to fulfill His command.  His love is immeasurable and incomprehensible.  By allowing Him and His love-life to infuse us, by Him anointing us with His Holy Spirit and power, all things become possible.   Our eyes become like His fiery eyes that cut through what we obviously see in others and into how He sees them with love and compassion, as His beloveds.  Our perception changes when we allow Him to mold us to be like Him. 

If you look at the image of this blog post, you will see this old and short log.  It was left discarded by the roadside and no one took notice of it.  I saw it numerous times as it was situated on the street where I live.  Every time I pass by, it always catches my attention.  It is beautiful, but I did not have any use of it. 

As days, weeks, months and years passed by, it was just there standing unnoticeably by itself.  But when I was rearranging my little garden last week, I realized that there was something missing and immediately thought of the old and short log.  And so, today, I made a decision and told our village gardener/janitor to get it for me.  Hmmm … now it found its beautiful purpose.

Sometimes our life is relatable to this old cut log.  We may feel unnoticed and unloved, but be of good cheer, for despite our feelings, our Heavenly Father Who is rich in mercy and abounding in love is always on a lookout, ever ready for an opportunity to show Himself strong and mighty to us because He cares for us.  His time is perfect to bring us home, into His loving embrace where we will find our purpose and walk in the beauty of it.   We’ve got to believe and be ready to set aside our “self-pity” mindsets by speaking over it,  saying and declaring until our faith is awakened, “IT IS WRITTEN!  I am the apple of God’s eye.  I am His precious possession and the object of His attention.  I am never alone for He never leaves me nor forsakes me.  You, O Lord said, “You will never [under any circumstances] desert me [nor give me up nor leave me without support, nor will You in any degree leave me helpless, nor will You forsake or let me down or relax Your hold on me [assuredly not]!  (Hebrews 13:5 AMP)

Life is short.  Let’s live it well by seeing ourselves the way the Lord our God sees us and seeing others the way He sees them.   It is not by our might, not by our power, but by His Spirit Who dwells in us.   Let’s be bold as a lion, confidently stepping out and expressing the love of Christ flowing through us.  Friends across the world may need our text messages even just to say “hello”.  People we meet on the street may need our smiles to lit and lift up their day.  A good and encouraging word may be spoken to those we are in conversation with each day.  Let us bless someone unknown to us by giving them something, in and out of season, that makes them feel significant, for truly they are worthy of attention in the eyes of our Heavenly Father.   After all, we are His hands and feet here on earth.  When we identify ourselves with Christ, His touch becomes ours.

As HIS BELOVEDS, let’s not live to be ones that need to be loved, to be noticed, to be accepted, to be approved and to be embraced.  Instead, let’s allow the love of Christ to be infused in us and diffused through us, empowering us to love others, notice others, accept others, approve others and embrace others if need be, all by His mercy and grace.  As He is, so are we in this world and this world is waiting and groaning for the revealing sons of God Who will love them the very way Jesus loves you and the same way Jesus loves me. 

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:35)

Prayer:  Heavenly Father, thank You for giving us Your Son, Jesus Christ, Who became Man, so that men and women who believe in You, our One True God and the One Whom You sent, can become Your dearly beloved sons and daughters, brought in into Your Kingdom, into Your divine family.  Thank You, Jesus, for withholding nothing from us, not even Your own life.  You gave Yourself to us so that we may become whole and complete, lacking nothing, wanting nothing that is of this world, but seeking You more and more as each day passes.  Thank You, Holy Spirit, for bearing witness into our spirits that we are sons and daughters of the Most High God as we identify ourselves with Christ.  Amen!