Did you know that every 2 seconds, someone is a victim of Identity Theft? Thieves are on the prowl hunting down their next victim who isn’t on guard or prepared, who doesn’t seem confident or steadfast. They are watching you, studying your moves and ready to take on your identity and all that you have worked for.

We hear commercials all the time for Life lock and companies who guarantee to protect your credit and identity. But what happens when your inner identity, your soul is stolen and you don’t even know it? You become someone you never thought you would. You say and do things that follow the norms of your society and deception takes over until YOU are a victim of a whole different kind of Identity Theft!

John 10:10 says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

The thief comes to STEAL!!! That’s his purpose – that’s his goal. Don’t think he doesn’t know your weaknesses. He studies you!

There are several things that can cause us to lose our identity as Christians including anxiety, depression, allowing our past to define us, as well as a variety cultural and political agendas being pushed in our faces today!

My sister and I were just talking about how mental illness and depression seem to be at an all-time high. We look at the state of our nation and our culture and see things un-Godly that have become a norm for us. Many of us don’t even realize the sin around us because it is so covered up by political correctness and acceptance.

In this blog in particular, we are briefly discussing how we have lost our identity in the political campaigns being pushed at us today. Three of the biggest issues dividing our Nation right now seem to be homosexuality, abortion and political leadership. Now, these are HUGE issues we can’t obviously address in full context in 1 blog, but just to identify how we have lost our identity in social issues and turned from the ways of God, we will simply state them.

2 Timothy 4:3-4 – “For the time is coming when they will no longer listen and respond to the healing words of truth because they will become selfish and proud. They will seek out teachers with soothing words that line up with their desires, saying just what they want to hear. They will close their ears to the truth and believe nothing but fables and myths.”

We shouldn’t be surprised that these things are happening…

2 Timothy 3:1-7– “But you need to be aware that in the final days the culture of society will become extremely fierce and difficult for the people of God.People will be self-centered lovers of themselves and obsessed with money. They will boast of great things as they strut around in their arrogant pride and mock all that is right. They will ignore their own families, They will be ungrateful and ungodly.

They will become addicted to hateful and malicious slander, Slaves to their desires, they will be ferocious, belligerent haters of what is good and right. With brutal treachery, they will act without restraint, bigoted and wrapped in clouds of their conceit. They will find their delight in the pleasures of this world more than the pleasures of the loving God.

They may pretend to have a respect for God, but in reality they want nothing to do with God’s power. Stay away from people like these! For they are the ones who worm their way into the hearts of vulnerable women, spending the night with those who are captured by their lusts and steeped in sin.They are always learning but never discover the revelation-knowledge of truth.”

Homosexuality

One issue my sister and I realized was that we just came off the heels of Pride Month and couldn’t take our kids to a Mall, ATM or restaurant without seeing rainbow advertising and even your favorite brands were sending out e-mails with sales and advertising the Pride Collection. Some of these things are so shoved in our faces that we begin to think it’s normal, it’s ok. Our culture claims if we don’t agree, we are hateful. Did you lose your identity in identifying as someone God did not create you to be? Did you lose your identity in fitting in or allowing the subtle lies of the masses condition the truth you use to know?

The Bible clearly states in 1 Corinthians 6:9-13, “Surely you must know that people who practice evil cannot possess God’s kingdom realm. Stop being deceived! People who continue to engage in sexual immorality, idolatry, adultery, sexual perversion, homosexuality, fraud, greed, drunkenness, verbal abuse, or extortion—these will not inherit God’s kingdom realm.It’s true that some of you once lived in those lifestyles, but now you have been purified from sin, made holy, and given a perfect standing before God—all because of the power of the name of the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, and through our union with the Spirit of our God. It’s true that our freedom allows us to do anything, but that doesn’t mean that everything we do is good for us. I’m free to do as I choose, but I choose to never be enslaved to anything. Some have said, “I eat to live and I live to eat!” But God will do away with it all. The body was not created for illicit sex, but to serve and worship our Lord Jesus, who can fill the body with himself.”

We have to be very careful in this day and age to guard our minds and hearts and not be swayed by the majority around us if we know the majority around us is wrong. Jesus was mocked and ridiculed. He hung out with sinners, yet never sinned. He called sin out and knew how to perfectly balance boldness with grace and love. We need to look more like Jesus and less like the world. We cannot allow the redefinition of sexuality, marriage and life to characterize this Nation. It’s truly time for Christians to stand up and take our place in the gap between God and mankind.

Thank you to our sweet friend Barbara Copeland – she posted an article from Grace to You, titled Unleashing God’s Truth and I really think everyone needs to read it.(Link will be at bottom of this blog) But it talks very candidly about why God condemns homosexuality – it overturns God’s fundamental design for human relationship and multiplying. There are so many scriptures on this we could go into, but let’s move on.

Abortion

Everett Koop, M.D., formerly the Surgeon General, states that during his 35-plus years of practicing medicine, “Never once did a case come across my practice where abortion was necessary to save a mother’s life.” 

Percentage of women who chose an abortion because having a baby “would; change their life (job, school)”: 76. Percentage who chose an abortion because of rape or incest: 1.

I never thought we’d live in a society where we were debating the life of unborn children, yet here we are, a nation divided. It’s not about abortion they say. It’s about women’s rights. Have we lost compassion for life and God’s plan for lives, no matter how little? Have we lost our identity in identifying with the masses? I definitely see a rise in our generation of Christians compromising the truth of God for the lies of the world.

Who are we to end life? There are no circumstances in the Bible where it is ever ok for mankind to determine the days we have. Yet, we have all these reasons why it’s justifiable to tweak God’s plan to fit our ideologies and beliefs.

Job 14:5– “Since his days are determined, The number of his months is with You [in Your control], And You have made his limits so he cannot pass [his allotted time].”

Have we again compromised the FULL Word of God to fit the masses and identify with the world and the world’s views? It’s so easy to lose our identity in the majority. It’s so easy to lose our identity in the scope of what seems the “right” thing to do, but it’s not about the “right” thing or the Politically Correct thing to do, it’s about what God says, not in part, but in FULL!

Politics

We are divided over Presidency, politics, so much so that hate is all we see when watching the news in anything political. God called us to respect our Leadership, not if we agreed or not. The best thing we can do as a nation to unify is to pray together for our leaders, not divide and spew out hate and ugliness. Have we lost our Identity in hate and acceptance of things we know is wrong because everyone else is doing it? We talk about change. We talk about what we want and don’t want and yes, we live in a democracy where we do have a vote! But that doesn’t give us the right to be sore losers and spew hate and ridicule on the opposition, especially if they are put in to power.

There are so many examples of submissiveness that God tries to teach us –submissiveness to God, submissiveness to husbands, submissiveness to presidential and leadership authority, yet when we dishonor that, we are dishonoring God who put those powers in authority!

Romans 13:1-2– “Every person must submit to and support the authorities over him. For there can be no authority in the universe except by God’s appointment, which means that every authority that exists has been instituted by God. So to resist authority is to resist the divine order of God, which results in severe consequences.”

We are to submit and pray – not only if we agree or feel like it…We have the power as children of God to change the way this nation is going if we stand up for His principles and simply pray – not bash or gossip or spread hate. It’s not our job to change the world, but to pray and intercede in the gap on behalf of our nation and allow the hand of God back in.

Ezekiel 22:30– “So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one.”

2 Chronicles 7:14– “if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

Have we truly humbled ourselves in prayer? We want the nation to change and if we spent more time on our knees instead of creating and posting harsh memes on Facebook bashing our President and leadership, maybe we would see a difference in our culture!

These are just a few of the things that have swayed us into slowly and subtly losing our identity in Christ. In the next blog, we will talk more about how we find our way back, how the only way to truly identify and know who we are is by knowing who HE is!

https://www.gty.org/library/articles/A170

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