A couple of years ago, my family anticipated the arrival of a package from a major online retailer. When it did not arrive at the expected date, we extended some grace, and then waited a bit longer. As we waited, the mailbox began to run dry. Strangely, we weren’t receiving any bills. And we weren’t receiving any correspondence. Strangest of all, we weren’t receiving any junk mail. We called the online retailer to check on our overdue package. They told us that our mail was undeliverable. What? That definitely was our address in their system, so any package should have been deliverable. We called the post office, and after some legwork on my part, and on the part of the post office, we discovered that someone had re-routed our mail to south Florida. Not only that, but they had attempted to open a number of credit cards in Kelli’s name! Someone had attempted to steal our identities! Had they been successful, they could have cleaned out our bank account, destroyed my reputation, and killed some of my hopes and dreams. I spent days cleaning it up.
Spiritually, this is how Satan works! He comes only to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). Among his most effective strategies is to steal your identity. Upon doing that, he will attempt to kill your testimony. And if he succeeds with that, he hopes to destroy your potential in God’s plans. He steals your identity by trying to separate it from the character of Christ. He then pushes you to identify with those things that are antichrist. This may come brashly in the form of tempting you to identify with things obviously tainted with lust, or greed, or bitterness, or pride, or rebellion. But more often, he subtly coaxes you to identify with your career, or your pleasures, or your family, or other things that are good, but to do so in ways that are greater than your identity with Christ. Identifying with Christ, is to identify with his character most — to allow yourself to be shaped into his example. This is the identity you were intended to carry. This makes it your truest and highest identity. As a child of God, we are identified with his family by our visible attributes. In Christ we have abundant life! But if we identify with things outside the will of God, we then can become identified with Satan, and when that happens, we take on satanic attributes, and sometimes even advance demonic causes (John 8:44).
If someone were to meet you for the first time, how would they know you identified with Christ if you did not use words to tell them? How can you keep Satan from stealing your identity?
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