Who am I?
There are many things that we could look at as part of our new identity, but here we will only look at one more, in which is found in Revelation 1:5-6. It says, “And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”
This aspect of our new identity is that God has given us a new role within His Kingdom. Before we were saved, we were only serving ourselves. We were focused on ourselves and our lives were unproductive for anything of eternal value. Now we have been given a job to perform. We have been given not just acceptance into the Kingdom of God but also a position of service in God’s Kingdom. “You are not just welcome,” says God. “I have made you to rule and reign with me, and to minister to me in service for me.”
One of the reasons that many people do not fully embrace their new identity is that they have not realized the great honor of the position that God has given to them.
Instead they continue to think like the slave they were, not the king they have become in Christ. They are torn between being a prince or a pauper. You may say, “If I am a king, where is my crown? Where is my kingdom and where are my servants?” The answer is that you are a king with Christ, not of your own kingdom, but within His Kingdom. It is His crown, but in Heaven, He will present you with a crown to wear. It is His Kingdom, but He has chosen to share with you the joy of ruling and reigning with Him.
We are laying up the rewards that we will receive in Heaven with our service now. Just as Jesus was a servant on this earth, but King of Kings in Heaven, so, too, we are His servants while here on earth, but in Heaven we will be the kings over which He will rule. God has given you the opportunity to live a life that has eternal value, not just one that has eternal condemnation.
How then do we take on this new life?
If you remember our example from earlier, on one side of you is a rotten stinking corpse, on the other side is Jesus Christ. How do we bury the old man and make our experience in life match our position in Christ? How do we live to Christ and die to sin?
The answer to that is easier than you might think, and is found in the concept of 2 Corinthians 5:7, “(For we walk by faith, not by sight:)” The trouble with our walk to this point is that we have been trying to live the new life in the same way we lived the old life. The old life was dominated by our senses: those things that we could see, hear, smell, touch, and taste. Our new life is to be lived by faith, not by the senses of the flesh. Remember what it said in Galatians 2:20, “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.” You see, we are in the flesh, but we are to live by faith.
This is not some mystical thing. Living by faith simply means to respond to life from God’s point of view, simply taking God at His Word and acting upon it.
