The devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” (Luke 4:3).
You form your identity in one of two ways: you achieve it by yourself or you receive it from God.
When you achieve your identity by yourself, there are numerous problems. If you wrap up your identity in your role (mother, wife, husband, father, winner, beauty queen and so forth), when your role changes, you fall into an identity crisis. When the kids move out, the marriage crumbles, you lose your job or age comes to diminish your beauty, you become devastated. You no longer know who you are.
When you receive your identity from God, you are able to remain healthy no matter what happens in your life. When you know that you are a loved child of God, you are free to stop living for your identity—something that is never secure—and start living from your identity, which is eternally secure.
Who you think you are determines what you do. Because of this, when Satan attacks, he starts by undermining your sense of identity. In the first attack on humans, Adam and Eve were told that if they did something (partake of the forbidden fruit), they would then achieve their identity by becoming “like God.” That, however, was a lie. God had already made them in His likeness. They had already received an identity of being like God but somehow got spiritual amnesia and forgot who they were. They wrongly believed the satanic lie that they could achieve an identity by their own efforts.
Satan used this same tactic when he attacked Jesus. We read of the assault on Jesus’ identity in Luke 4:3, “The devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.'” Satan questioned Jesus’ identity as the Son of God. God the Father spoke this very thing from heaven over Jesus at His baptism 40 days prior saying, “You are My beloved Son” (Luke 3:22b). Jesus did not need to do anything to achieve His identity as the Son of God. Unlike Adam, Jesus did not forget who He was.
Sometimes negative self-talk and negative self-image are a demonic attack on you and your identity, as was the case with Jesus. Knowing who God says you are as a loved, forgiven saint with a Father who never fails is the key to your victory, just as it was to Jesus. {eoa}
Mark Driscoll is a Jesus-following, mission-leading, church-serving, people-loving, Bible-preaching pastor and the author of many books, including Spirit-Filled Jesus, which you can order here. He currently pastors The Trinity Church in Scottsdale, Arizona, with his family. For all of pastor Mark Driscoll’s Bible teaching, please visit markdriscoll.org or download the app. You can download a free devotional e-book from pastor Mark here.
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