Who am I?
Jesus one day went to the country of the Gadareens, and as soon as He stepped off of the boat a maniac met Him. The man lived in the tombs among the dead; he cut himself and was often bound with chains to restrain him. He identified with death and when Jesus asked his name he replied, “My name is legion for we are many”, speaking of the demons that possessed him. He didn’t tell Jesus his real name, only the identity of his sin. This is what most people do in our day. Who are you? “I’m an alcoholic, I’m a drug addict, I’m a compulsive eater” You see, the devil and the world want you to find your identity in your sin. They even have told you that you can never be anything else. Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, you know. You have been conditioned to think like a slave, and you must learn to think like the new man who is free in Christ.
God gives us another picture of what it is like when we turn back to our old ways of sinning. The Bible says in 2 Peter 2:22, “But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.” Imagine the disgust you feel when you see a dog eating its own vomit. That is what God feels when He sees you, His child, return to your old sinful nature. We need to understand the truth that the old man is dead, and we are dead to it.
Galatians 2:20 says, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Notice what Paul says, “I” that is the “old I”, the old man, “am crucified with Christ” The old man that was dead in trespasses and sins, was nailed to the cross in the person of Christ. “Nevertheless, I live” that is the new I, the new man that is alive. Paul was saying that the old man is dead and I do not any longer identify with him, instead I now find my identity in the life of Christ. I am not what I was. I am not that dead rotting corpse of sin, and I will no longer choose to identify myself with him and his deeds.
This does not mean that I will be able to live a sinless life, but it means that I will not make sin the identifying mark in life. Instead, I will make Christ the identifying mark of my life. The secret of my new life is that it is not mine, it is Christ’s life in me.
Colossians 3:1-3 says, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”
