How Do I Identify?
Identity is crucial for success or failure. How you identify will determine the quality of life you will have.
It is very popular for those in the ministry to identify with their calling. I see ministers calling themselves apostles or prophets, evangelists, teachers, and pastors all the time. Just because God called you into a five-fold ministry doesn’t mean that is who you are. It is what you do for God; it isn’t who you are. I have been in the ministry for over 40 years, but I don’t identify with the office I stand in to do what the Lord anointed me to do for Him. I identify as a child of God. That is who I am, and I live life from that reality as His beloved child.
I am grateful for the calling and gifting God gave me to do what He asked me to do, but that isn’t who I am; it is what I do. All the promises and blessings that come into my life are directly associated with being a child of God.
I have been in the ministry long enough to witness many ministers who heavily identified with their office eventually crash and burn spiritually. Sadly, many of them are no longer in the ministry today. They insisted that people address them by the title of their office. One minister I knew well became offended when I pointed out to him that Jesus never demanded to be addressed as Mr. Christ or even Lord. Most of the time, people simply called Him by His name, Jesus. While His name was certainly significant and revealed His identity, He rested in the fact that He was beloved by God as His child. As followers of Him, we should do the same.
It doesn’t matter to God what you do – pastor, apostle, church elder, choir member, greeter, etc. What matters to God is that you rest in who He is to you. What you do for the Lord should be an expression of your love for Him. Obedience is a response to His love for us. Rejoice in the fact that you are a child of God; you are as loved by Him as the apostle Paul was. In fact, Jesus wants us to know that the very same love God has for Him, He has for us. You are loved by God in the exact way He loved Jesus!
I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You have loved Me may be in them [overwhelming their heart], and I [may be] in them." "O just righteous Father, although the world has not known You, has never acknowledged You [and the revelation of Your mercy], yet I have known You; and these [believers] know [without any doubt] that You sent Me. (John 17:25-26 AMP)
