The most devastating times of life occur when we experience a crisis in our identity.  During these times, our entire foundation for living can be shaken.  Thank God, in the new birth, we receive an identity of triumph that should never be shaken!  Our identity with Jesus brings triumph to our lives.

  Check out the following scriptures:  2 Corinthians 5:21, “For He made Him who knew no sin to sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Romans 5:17, “For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.”  According to these scriptures our identification with Jesus enable us to reign in this life. Therefore, we can approach life in a positive and victorious manner.

  Let’s come to an understanding of what identification means so we can live in the triumph of Jesus.  As a verb, identify means to cause to be or become identical.  As a noun, identification means the sameness of essential traits in different instances. This means that salvation has enabled us to become in essential traits exactly like Jesus.  That is almost hard to fathom but it is true.  2 Peter 1:4 declares that we have become partakers of the divine nature. That is why in the new birth the old nature becomes non-existent and the new nature takes over.  The old is gone all things have become new.  We need to look to the Bible to tell us how we are like Jesus so that we know who we are in Him. Notice we look to the Bible to find out how we are like Jesus.  We need to know what things we have in common with Jesus.  Our natural tendency is to claim our shortcomings as we look to Jesus.  However, when we do that we are not identifying with Him.  If we take the Bible as the truth then we should accept what it says concerning our likeness to Jesus.

  Galatians 4:7 reveals, “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts crying out, Abba Father!  Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son and if a son, then an heir through Christ.”  Like Jesus, we are sons and therefore heirs of God through faith in Him.  Jesus himself spoke about our identification with Him.  John records these words in the 14th Chapter, the 12th verse, “Most assuredly, I say to you he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also and greater works than these will he do, because I go to my Father.”  In these two verse we catch a glimpse of two more likeness with Jesus:  1.  We are sons.  2.  We can do His works.  There are many verses that describe our likeness to Jesus.

  Being a son awards us privileges.  Read these fascinating scriptures that reveal our identity in Jesus: 

 
Acts 17:28 “for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, 'For we are also His offspring.'”  Our entire being can be in tune with Jesus – our thoughts, our words and our actions.

Eph 2:10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” We are no longer under Satan’s bondage, but we are created with divine attributes.

1 Cor 1:30 “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God -- and righteousness and sanctification and redemption” – Do you lack wisdom?  In Jesus wisdom becomes yours. 

Col 1:13-14 “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.” We have been released from all the power of darkness- fear, envy, sickness, failure, defeat and bondage!

Rom 8:37 “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” Our identity in Jesus causes us to triumph.

  God wants us to focus on our identity with Jesus, not our differences.  When we live in our likenesses, we are living in righteousness.  When we focus on our differences, we live in sin consciousness.  When sin consciousness abounds, we separate ourselves from our identity in Jesus and then our foundation for living can be easily shaken.  You may be thinking, “I’m not perfect” What about the sin in my life?  The scripture in 1 John 1:9 tells us that when we confess our trespasses, He will forgive us and restore our righteousness. This is how we maintain our identity in Him.  Your mistakes cannot change what God has made you in the new birth.

  We can avoid identity crises and devastating times by focusing on how much we are like Jesus.  See yourself as the Father sees you, in unity with Him not separated from Him. You will experience triumph as you begin to live in this new identity.