Does the Church have an identity crisis?

I got saved in 1972 and like most of you received Christ as my personal Savior, realizing my need for Him and accepting the gift He paid the price for.  I’d like to take a look along with you on what He purchased for us…I wonder if we’ve just seen a part of the picture.

When God created Adam and Eve, He created them with a mandate. Genesis 2:28 says this, “And God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”

God created mankind with original intent, it was to rule over the earth. Let’s take a look at the word rule in the Hebrew:

Rule= to tread down, subjugate, (make to) have dominion, prevail against, reign (make to) rule over.

Subjugate in the dictionary means this: to bring under control, governance, as a subject, conquer, to make submissive.

Adam and Eve were created with an assignment, to fill the earth (which we hear about) and to subdue it and rule over every living thing that moves on the earth.

Unfortunately, Adam and Eve, because of their sin in eating of the tree of good and evil, gave that dominion over to the devil. He lied to them, they believed him and a transfer was made.

Jesus came to the earth to re-establish that original mandate?  What!? You may proclaim…that’s a bold statement!  Is it??  Let’s take a stroll through Scripture and look at some things.

Jesus was tempted in the wilderness by the devil, being led there by the Holy Spirit (ever wonder why He did that?). I wonder if it was to begin “undoing” what satan had done to Adam and Eve in the garden…one piece at a time, taking back what had been taken from them. Jesus faced satan’s half-truths, using Scripture none the less, and Jesus spoke truth and stood strong on each one. Jesus used scripture back at the devil to refuse him. Matthew 4:6 even says the devil said, “IF You are the Son of God…”. Jesus knew who He was and stood strong against him.

Matthew 4:23, just 17 verses later, Jesus is going through all of Galilee, teaching and proclaiming “the gospel of the kingdom, healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people.”

Matthew 5:1, just 3 verses later, Jesus begins His first sermon recorded in scripture and much of it was explaining to them what the kingdom was about; What it looked like, how the people in the kingdom lived and in Matthew 6:10 He even tells us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Let’s look at several of Jesus’ analogies. He talks about salt in Matthew 5:13-14.  He says, “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again? It is good for nothing anymore, except to be thrown out and trampled under-foot by men.”

Have we ever really taken the time to wonder what this means? More on this later.

Matthew 5:15-16 says, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do men light a lamp, and put it under the peck measure, but on a lampstand; and it gives light to all who are in the house.

What does it mean to be a lampstand?  Again…my thoughts on this will be later.

Matthew 7:7-8 says, “Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened.

Do we know this?  Do we believe it? It’s really important for us to understand this…Jesus is beginning to reveal to people some important, “kingdom living” principles. Let’s begin with the word ask.

Ask in the Greek (the New Testament is translated from Greek text) means, to ask (in genitive case), call for, crave, desire, require.  Do you know what genitive case means?  It’s like putting an ‘s at the end of something like this sentence here “Sue’s dog likes to bark.”  The ‘s after Sue tells you whose dog likes to bark.

Ask in this reference also reveals ownership. Jesus is saying that it’s ours to ask for. When we ask, call for, crave, desire and require, it’s going to be answered (per Jesus) because it’s ours to ask for. If we can just let this truth permeate down through our being, it will completely change our prayer life. By understanding that we have been given permission to “own” the things we pray into the kingdom, it stirs up our faith.

In contrast to this, Matthew 6:30 says this, “But if God so arrays the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more do so for you, “men of little faith?”  Let’s look at the words little faith.

I’ve shared before, but it’s worth sharing again that faith means: persuasion, moral conviction (of the truthfulness of God) from the primary root, a verb “to convince”.

Little means: puny (in extent, degree, number, duration) especially neuter.  Neuter in the dictionary means “neither active or passive.”

I had to do a little more digging to understand the “passive” part of the above meaning but in my dictionary, here is what passive means: not active or operating: INERT.  Inert means lacking the power to move.  Wow!!  So, when Jesus is talking to them about having little faith, He is literally telling them that it means to have such a lacking of power in their understanding of truth that they are rendered unable to move. They aren’t convinced of the truth of His word so they are immobile.

All of these things, and many more are in the three chapters that are called The Sermon on the Mount and these people heard all of this in one sitting. There are many nuggets of truth here, I’ve just pulled out a few.

Matthew 9:2-6 is when Jesus is brought the paralytic, lying on a bed. Seeing their faith (this is the same word as above and means “convinced”) Jesus says, “Take courage, My son, your sins are forgiven.”

“And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, ‘This fellow blasphemes.’ And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, ‘Why are you thinking evil in your hearts? For which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven, or to say Rise and walk?’ But in order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’ then He said to the paralytic, ‘Rise, take up your bed, and go home.’”

This is one of the first times Jesus proclaims that He has authority and here is what that word means.

Authority is the Greek word exousia (G1849) (in the sense of ability) privilege, i.e. force, capacity, competency, delegated influence, authority, power, strength from a double root G1537 which is a primary preposition denoting origin (the point whence action or motion proceeds) from AND G1510 I exist, I am.

To put this into simpler language, exousia means “from I Am”.  God is the great I Am. Jesus’ exousia authority came from I Am.

Now comes the cool part…the part that applies to us. Matthew 10:1 says, “And having summoned His twelve disciples, He gave them authority (exousia) over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.

Did you know that Jesus gave the same authority to his disciples (and to us)? The same “I AM” power that Jesus operated in; He gave back to us. Adam and Eve gave it away in the garden and Jesus, on the Cross, took it back.

Now let’s look at Luke 9:1-2. “And He called the twelve together, and gave them power and authority over all the demons, and to heal diseases. And He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to perform healing.”

Power is the Greek word dunamis. In the Strong’s Concordance it’s G1411 and means force (literally or figuratively); specially, miraculous power, might, ability, strength.

We have already looked at authority above. It’s the word exousia but in addition to it coming from “I AM”, which still blows me away that it’s that specific in telling us where the authority comes from, I also want to point out that one of the meanings is also “delegated influence”. What does delegated influence look like?  I have a natural example to help us understand it.

My son in law is a police officer. When he has on his police uniform, he has authority.  He has a uniform and a badge. That badge lets people know that he has the delegated authority to tell you what you can and can’t do. He can pull you over and give you a ticket.  He can take you to jail. He has been delegated that authority by the city he works for and his uniform and badge let everyone know so.

In Christ, because of the work He did on the cross, we have been given delegated authority from “I AM”. The word meaning makes that clear.

Now let’s look at Luke 10:19. “Behold, I have given you authority (exousia) to tread upon serpents and scorpions and over all the power (dunamis) of the enemy and nothing shall injure you.”

If you do a word search of “power of the enemy” this is the only verse that comes up.  If you search “authority of the enemy” nothing comes up.

Here is my point. We have been given power and authority. The devil only has power…he has NO authority.  We have a badge (figuratively speaking because we have delegated authority), he has NO badge. The devil has no delegated authority, he only acts like it. It is so important that we know this. Most of us have lived our Christian lives not knowing who we are.  We didn’t know we had a badge…so we haven’t moved in authority. (On a side note…would our world be in the condition it’s currently in if we had known and used our God given authority?)

We need to begin to see ourselves as Heaven sees us. We are told we are sinners saved by grace. The accurate way to say this would be “we once were sinners and now we are saved by grace”, but we need to move on from there and begin to realize who the Bible says we are. Search the New Testament for what we are called. I’ll start a list for you:

• Beloved (2 Peter 3:14, Jude 1:20 But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost) and many others
• Saints (1 Corinthians 16:1) and many others
• Believers (Acts 5:14) and others
• Temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16-17, Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?…for the temple of God is holy and that is what you are.)
• Temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?)

I’m sure there are many more…I’ve just listed a few on the top of my head. Now contrasting that, we are referenced ONCE in the New Testament as sinners.  James 4:8 says, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”

In 1Timothy 1:15 Paul does refer to himself as the chief of sinners, but other than that I find nothing else.

Romans 5:8 says, “But God commanded His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” But you’ll notice that this was us before Christ, not us now. We must get this or we’ll struggle to understand who we’ve been called to be.

Now Google the term “sinner saved by grace” and see what scripture that is. You won’t find it, it’s not there.  I looked in the Strong’s Concordance too. It’s not there, so why do we hear it said so much?

Here is an example that helps understand this dynamic better. If you have a son and you constantly correct him calling him a “bad boy” what would they become? Who would they see themselves to be? A more accurately thing to say would be, “That behavior doesn’t line up with who you are.” It judges the behavior but doesn’t diminish who you see him to be. I believe we need to refuse the “sinner saved by grace” image.

So back to the badge… Remember the event that happened at a school in Uvalde, Texas. I heard that policemen, with badges and authority, stood outside and didn’t intervene. Many were in an uproar about it and judged their behavior poorly.

Could it be that we have been in the same position? We have been given authority by God Himself. What does He want us to do with it?  I don’t think it’s to stand by observing devastation and do nothing.  But what He’s calling you to do is for you to hear, and you need to ask. I know it will be something, even if it’s in the realm of intercession.

Now let’s go back to Jesus’ sermon on the mount and look at His reference to salt and light. Matthew 5:13a says, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt becomes insipid, with what will it be salted?”

If the salt (us) becomes insipid (lacking in qualities that interest, stimulate or challenge), with what will the earth be salted? Think about it. This scripture is asking how will salt (stimulate or challenge) the earth if it becomes insipid. It’s obvious that we are to do something if we are to salt the earth. Now look at 5:13b “It is good for nothing except to be thrown outside and to be trodden upon by people.”

This is saying that if we as salt of the earth don’t do what we are supposed to do, then we will be trodden on by people. Do you see this happening today?

Now let’s look at Matthew 5:14 “You are the light of the world. You cannot hide a city that has been built upon a mountain. And they do not light a lamp and set it under a basket but on a lampstand and it gives light to all those who are in the house.”

This scripture doesn’t say you are the light of the church but that’s mostly what’s been done.  The church preached for years that we were to protect ourselves and our children and pull out of culture. This was the prevalent teaching when I got saved and raised my children.  We can all see where that got us. We left culture and culture went the way it went without any salt or light to influence it or hold back the darkness so to speak.

Jesus ends that portion by saying in Matthew 5:16 “Thus your light will shine before the children of men that they may see your good works, and may glorify your Father who is in Heaven. Our light didn’t shine before the children of men. They didn’t see our good works because we had left the culture.

It’s time for a heart check and an identity check. Spend some time soul searching to see what you believe about your self and your walk with the Lord. Do you know you are more than a conqueror through Christ Jesus? Or are you just a sinner saved by grace. How you perceive yourself will determine how you live and what you believe you can accomplish.

Have you been one of the ones who were taught to “not get involved in politics” or not to expect transformation of the world systems and the whole philosophy that the world will only get darker and darker before the day of the Lord’s return, so why try?  These mindsets and many others have gotten us where we are. I, for one, do not believe that we are close to the end times and we need to shake the dust off and ask Holy Spirit what to put our hand to, to affect change. Let’s get salty guys. Let’s get before the Lord and get our assignment and begin to make a difference.

If the Lord comes back sooner than I think, it’s a victorious bride He is coming for, not one hoping we can just make it until His return. Victory not victim… Habakkuk 2:14 says, “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”  This has not happened…let’s partner with Him to make this happen.

Jesus said in John 14:12, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.”

I’m looking for the greater works…I’m looking for the glory of God to cover the earth. And I believe He is too and it’s our assignment to accept our identity and calling and affect change. We will do our part and He will do the most! That’s just the way He is…and I love that about Him.