CRISIE HUTCHINGS

Why do we allow what has happened to us to become our identity? We drown in the failure of others to affirm or love us as we constantly struggle with the truth that we are loved and accepted by God. Unable to assimilate that His approval is the only approval that matters.

We let our past, our failures and mistakes dictate our present and future and they drown out the voice of our Father who has called us His, called us Separate, called us Out!

Why do we still struggle with our identity when the truth of His Word is constantly available to us???? Why do  we still fail to hear our Father’s affirmation?

Perhaps the reason we can’t hear Him is because we haven’t completely come out. We haven’t separated ourselves from the old life and the old man and we still dabble there. Maybe our ears are full of the opinions of man and the philosophies of this world  because we haven’t fully come out from under their influence. And so much so, that the Word and voice of God is silenced to our hearing.

Oh, He’s speaking but we are lulled to sleep by the world’s lullaby of compromise, complacency and ease and it’s promise of fortune and prominence and therefore, unable to hear Him.

Unable to hear our calling. Unable to hear His song over us. Doubt is tossing us to and fro in the waves of life’s troubles and the only voice we hear on the wind is that of the accuser,  who not only accuses us to God but God to us! The accuser’s voice is the one on the wind of the air because he is the prince of the power of the air.  Eph. 2:2

His is the voice of our culture, our society, our world and can never be trusted!

How is it, that Jesus was untouched by the voice of His culture and could do all that He did when He walked the earth? How is it that His words and thoughts were so different from them? How is it, that people drew back when He said things like “eat my flesh and drink my blood” or “you are of your father, the devil”? Was it that He was God? Was it that He was divine? Not all together. It was because He was called out and lived called out. Many times, he said “I am not of this world”, and boy, He wasn’t kidding. He would say “those who are of my Father, hear me, those who are not, don’t”.

All through the epistles, Paul and the other apostles spoke God’s Word of coming out and being separate. Of throwing off the old man and living in newness of life! That is not something we can manufacture or accomplish is our strength but comes by surrender and obedience to the Spirit of God!

By saying “God I’m yours” and then finding out how God said we are to live as His! If I am His, what does that look like? Jesus was fully the Father’s. His belonging was totally in the Father. What did that look like in His life? Read the Gospels and you can see!

Listen to the things He said and the intent in which He spoke and you will find the model of our discipleship!

We say it and sing it in worship all the time “God, I belong to You, I am yours” and most of the time when we make these statements they are declarations of identity and security! But they must become declarations of ownership and obedience! “God, I am Yours! That means, nothing can separate me from you and I am separated to you! Be it done unto me according to your will!”

My back is to the world and my old life, including the places I used to find my identity. The places I have been delivered out of. Yes, even our areas of deliverance can become a place of encampment that our entire lives are measured by and based upon, instead of my life being built upon the Rock alone and His Word!

Our identity in Christ is not only as sons and daughters, but we are also to be identified with His death! We are crucified with Him and the life we now live, we live by His faith! What does the faith of Christ look like? Total surrender to His Father in everything. Thought, word and deed! No identity but dead to sin, dead to my old life, dead to this world and all its rudiments. Dead to my own will. Living out of HIS life and the will He has written out for my life.

I belong to His agenda only. His purposes in the earth only. Nothing belongs to me but Christ and His will!! Paul said, “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” [1 Cor. 2:2]. Every other thing in life that Paul ever attained  to or was known for was like rubbish to him, compared to the excellency of knowing Christ! Phil. 3:7-8

This, too, is to be our declaration. But how many of us ever come to this place in our own lives? How many of us reach the place in life that all the accomplishments, accolades and gold stars of life are considered rubbish compared to knowing Him? Would you trade them all or the opportunity for them to know Jesus Christ?

This is the crossroads we are at as individuals and as the Church of Jesus Christ. Will we give up our love of the world, the craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions, which is not of the Father [1 John 2: 15-17], to walk as Jesus walked?

This is our wakeup call! This is our summons to battle! This must become the mantra of our lives if we are ever to see revival in our lives, our families and our world. A day is coming and now is when we can no longer be divided in our hearts, but must become wholly His! One will cost us our lives, but the other will cost us our souls! We must choose, and now!

Let Christ be glorified in all!

Crisie