Dear friend,
In your last email you seemed very frustrated to figure out who you are based on your behavior. That’s your problem. Your behavior has nothing to do with your true identity.
As I pointed out last week, our identity is that which is unchanging and permanent about us. Our identity is the same thing as our nature, or our essence. It is that which we cannot NOT be. Our identity is spirit. We are spirit-beings, and that is what fundamentally makes us human beings created in the image of God.
As such, there are only two kinds of spirit-beings on planet earth (not counting any angels or demons that might be present roaming the land). Either your spirit is still a member of Adam’s race, or your spirit is one with Jesus Christ (I Cor 6:17). Either your spirit does not possess the life of God, or your spirit has been born-gain and possesses God’s life, the Life of Christ. You are either ungodly, or you are godly. In spirit.
Your nature, your identity, is either still “sinner in Adam,” or you have received the gift of righteousness (Rom 5:17b) and your identity is “saint in Christ.”
When you get saved, it is so much more than just getting to go to heaven when you die. Getting saved changes you at the level of Identity. Getting saved is about receiving a new life in the spirit, and becoming, at that moment of faith, a brand new spirit-being who did not exist on planet earth before that moment. One moment you were a spirit-being in Adam’s race. The next moment you are a brand new spirit that is one with Jesus Christ. You became a new creation (I Cor 5:17).
A new Life has come to your spirit, and that Life is now your righteousness, your holiness, even your wisdom (I Cor 1:30; Eph 1:4). This is your new identity.
At this moment of salvation (justification), at this moment that you receive the gift of righteousness in the spirit, NOTHING has happened in your soul. Not yet.[1] God has changed you at the level of identity, but your soul is not the place of your identity. So, your soul did not change at the moment of regeneration. Your soul remains the place where you still carry the weight and grief of your trauma, sorrow, humiliations, emasculation, rejections and the wounds of your past, painful story.
But, at least, your soul is now under new management.
However, your soul cries out for healing, peace and quiet. Or it cries out to be validated, appreciated, admired and honored. Our soul wants security blankets, trophies, recognition and applause. Our soul wants a new outcome to earlier losses. The soul, by golly, wants to be treated fairly, even more than fairly, to make up for so many past years of abandonment, neglect, poverty of love, and abuse.
Growing up without Christ your spirit suffered all of these same afflictions that are still in your soul. Thus, apart from Christ, you created your own diminishing identity. Under all of this affliction you “labeled” yourself as Less Than, Not Enough, or Unloved, Unworthy, Abandoned or still Pending Approval. This was your “identity” in both soul and spirit. And your body wore this identity with exhaustion, ulcers, aches and pains, fighting and proving, over-eating or under-eating, too much drinking, or in a desperate search to stay busy, keep running, and avoid thinking about the “label.”
But when Christ became your life in the spirit, your spirit was healed of the past. For you became one spirit with Jesus Christ, and your identity became the righteous life of Christ.
However, your soul is still under the (false) impression that nothing has changed for you. Your soul, for the most part, acknowledges that it is a nice thing that Christ saved you from your sins, but the soul continues to live under the old diminishing label. Whenever fresh, new conflict arises in your life, the soul wants to stand up, fight, argue and defend, run away, yell and curse, or in frustration go drink, sulk, pout and withdraw. Or whatever crazy-making, hurtful flesh pattern you have perfected over the years!
This is why you are so frustrated. Be comforted with this truth: there is a difference between your spirit and your soul. No matter how badly your soul acts-up or acts-out, that behavior is not who you are. It’s only how you are behaving at the moment. Your spirit is who you are. Hang in there and don’t be discouraged.
God changed you at the level of Identity, spirit. And there, in that place, despite your fleshly reactions and responses, your identity does not change. You are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (2 Cor 5:21).
-Carter
[1] This statement is probably not completely accurate, but let’s assume it for teaching purposes.