Identity, repentance, and sin

My pastor has been talking about a couple of things recently that started me thinking. He began the new year by talking about the nature of temptation, and then the last couple of Sundays he morphed into a discussion about our status as children of God.

I made a connection between the two. I don't really remember if my pastor intended this connection, but I think there is one. In a twilight moment between sleeping and waking last night it occurred to me that Christ didn't successfully resist sin because of superior understanding, an inside track to the truth, or willpower. The reason He successfully resisted sin is because He knew who he was. By the power of the Holy Spirit working in Him, He had perfect understanding of His identity. As a result, He only did what He saw the Father doing, and temptation did not master Him.

Our victory as people of faith is found in the Holy Spirit revelation of who God says we are. A few weeks ago I posted this long list of Scriptural principles regarding our identity. This is nothing but a list of identity statements. It is God telling us who we are. This is God's proclamation to the universe of what is real and true.

But what do we do? How do we respond to God's Word? We say, "I am a sinner saved by grace." Well, actually, that is not how God sees you. We say, "I am not a very good singer," or "I don't have a very good personality," or "I just can't seem to gain victory over my sin." But God has a different view. Or these awful things we say about ourselves: "My heart murmur is getting worse," or "My cancer is getting treated."

When we do this, we are articulating things that are in opposition to what God has spoken. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that I'm advocating "positive affirmations" or "change your reality" or "your words have power." Far from it. I am suggesting that we need to stop defining who we are and start agreeing with who God says we are!

One of the aspects of repentance is to agree with God. So let's agree with God, and repent. Turn from this sin of opposing God when He tells us who we are. Stop engaging in false humility (which is pride). Stop trying to redefine the truth of God's Word.

This is the victory over temptation, when we know with certainty by the revelation of the Holy Spirit and His power working in us that giving in to that temptation is contrary to who we are. When confronted with temptation, our response ought to be, "Wait a second. This is not me. This is not who God says I am."

I like it that my pastor added to a weak definition of grace previously promulgated by the prior pastor (who defined grace as "getting what we don't deserve") by noting that grace is so much more than that. Let me add even more. My definition of grace: "The empowering presence of God in us to be who He has called us to be, and to do what He has called us to do."

So we find that God is for us, but it is we who are against us. This needs to change so that we can truly be who God says we are.