For most of the month of May, I have been examining this matter of identity and all of the many internal/external factors that mold and shape our sense of self-awareness as relational and functional human beings. While meditating on some of the newly learned data, I begin wrestling with myself in an effort at listing the top three greatest evil human atrocities that I have witnessed in my lifetime and the destructive nature that these evils placed on the lives of billions.
As I begin to list these realities on paper, I was reminded of all of the grace and mercy of God throughout my life in Christ, as He protected me, as well as delivered me through many painful, dark and uncertain paths. Never has He failed me, never has He not delivered me from that which I was purposed to go through by His mighty hands. All while, He enabled me to continue to seek after total truth while submitting to the spiritual disciplines that have aided me throughout my life, as I am willfully embracing my identity in The Messiah. How do I strongly wish this reality for others!
Three Greatest Evil Human Atrocities
- Usury
- Chattel Slavery
- The Robbery of the Memory of Who People Really Are!
The temptation to elaborate on these three atrocities is great, but I will resist this inclination by briefly noting what I deem as the most essential thrust of this post is to identify how our relationship with God defines aspects of our role and functions on earth.
For each evil that I listed, I purposed to record a learned spiritual affirmation that was discovered by me in my on-going spiritual journey that somehow could be helpful for others as well.
- “Without a clear understanding of one’s divine identity, one’s purpose, plan, and the path that one takes throughout the short time we are given on earth is and will always be governed by other’s and not by self.”
- “Ultimate personal freedom and liberation were never intended to be granted by the will of fallen humanity, nor national constitutions or civil laws, regardless of where human-beings live in the earth.”
- “The peace along with freedom, personal identity and the nobility of what it means to be human, has always been given by the Sovereignty of God our Creator based upon His terms and conditions.”
Renewed Identity
When this human system fails us, disappoint us, while willfully using and abusing each of us, the Word of God is and always comfort you and me while carrying out God divine will for living-souls on earth. For the sake of this blog, no other meaningful scripture reference speaks to this matter of identity than Ephesians 2: 19, recorded in the Complete Jewish Bible format:
So then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers. On the contrary, you are fellow-citizens with God’s people and members of God’s family. You have been built on the foundation of the emissaries and the prophets, with the cornerstone being Yeshua [Jesus] the Messiah Himself. In union with Him, the whole building is held together, and it is growing into a holy temple in union with the Lord. Yes, in union with Him, you yourselves are being built together into a spiritual dwelling place of God!
Do not let this culture turn you into what God never intended for you and me to be!
To date, let me recommend one of the best books that I have read that biblically discuss human identity from a spiritual perspective is, “All Together Different”: Upholding The Church’s Unity While Honoring Our Individual Identities, written by J. Brian Tucker & John Koessler.
Grace and Peace