Can you see other people as God created them to be? Can you see yourself that way?
We all struggle with this. That’s because we’re holding onto things that block us from seeing.
We have to come through the cross. All that stuff we’re carrying –- that baggage, the things we’ve put on ourselves, our false identities, our addictions -– whatever it is, we have to bring it to the cross. Then we have to let it go and move through the cross, to the other side.
Everything has to come through the cross.
When we can let go of all that stuff, and move through the cross, we can start seeing who God created us to be. And we can see others as He created them to be. We can honor, forgive, bless, pray for.
It’s a choice, and we have to make it.
If we choose not to move through the cross – the same cross that Jesus died to make available to us – we can’t come into the truth of who we are.
As long as I believe I’m an addict, I can’t come into being an overcomer. I can’t come into being a conqueror. Because the belief that I’m an addict is diabolically opposed to the resurrection. I can’t have two identities. I can only have one. It’s either the one the world gives me (addict), or the one the Lord already gave me (freedom from bondage). Nothing cancels that out except my choice.
There is no power on earth stronger than your identity. Even if you choose not to live in it, it still exists. Waiting for you. Because the Lord created it for you.
Some people die, never having come into their identity. Because they chose to live on this side of the cross, not moving through.
If you believe in Jesus Christ, you have the power to come through the cross. You just do. Because He gives you that. That’s His promise: He gives you power to overcome anything if you believe in Him. Jesus died to give us that privilege – of dying to ourselves, letting go, moving through the cross, coming into our true identity, and walking in His power.
Remember this: Jesus didn’t just die on the cross. He rose again. That’s where you get your power. You die on the cross daily – let go of all your stuff, move through the cross, refuse to go back and claim your false identities.
Then you rise up in whatever you’re dying to. Whether it’s food, drugs, alcohol, stupid, or finances, you die to those things. Then Jesus can resurrect His power in you, to overcome in those same areas.
Isn’t that amazing?
A lot of people get to the cross, but they don’t get to the power. They don’t move through the cross. They don’t get to the resurrection.
If you don’t get to the resurrection, you have no power. You have nothing to overcome in. That’s why Jesus rose again. He could have just died, and that would have been enough. Just the fact that He died on the cross for us should have been enough. But the fact that He came back to empower us says there’s nothing we can’t overcome. That’s amazing.
If you believe in Jesus, and that He died and was resurrected, there’s not anything you can’t do. There’s no addiction you can’t overcome … there’s no job you can’t have … there’s no goal you can’t set, that you can’t do. Because if He put it in your heart, He’s going to meet it in you.