Your identification is a testimony of your unique character, personality, individuality. How you are identified demonstrates what others see when they are around you. Being identified with Christ exhibits our union with Him and His substitutionary work. Identification with Christ is the ultimate degree of fellowship with Him. It is a testimony that we have believed in Him, have been born again, and choose to bear His nature, name, and identity.
1 Corinthians 1:9 NKJV God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
You were called… into a new identity.
Before we received the call, we were identified with many other things.
- Elisha was a farmer.
- The disciples were twelve ordinary men when they were called into the fellowship of God’s Son.
- Moses was herding sheep on the back side of the desert.
- Abraham was in a nation of people who worshipped many gods.
- Daniel was a slave in Babylon.
- David was the least in his father’s house, was ruddy, with bright eyes, and was good looking.
Consider the fact that, “You are called into the fellowship of God’s Son.” What you came out of is not as important as what you have been called into.
There are two sides to identification with Christ.
- Jesus Christ has identified with us.
- We identify with God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
God has called you out and has identified you with Jesus Christ, His Son. By doing that, He has planned an extensive relationship for you with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. God has purposefully called us out of the darkness into the light of a relationship with His Son.
Jesus Christ has identified with us.
1 Peter 2:24 ESV He himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed.
1 Peter 3:18 ESV For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.
By identifying with us, Christ became a ransom for our souls. He took and bore our sins in His body. As a result, by His wounds you have been healed. This is amazing grace.
Consider the depth of change that happen when you were called into a identified with Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
The depth of change is realized in us when the old life of death is conquered by new life in Christ. Jesus did for us what we could never do for ourselves. We were still sinners when we were called out and identified with Christ our Savior. God’s Son took us up, claimed and radically changed us.
Pay attention to what God has done by identifying us with His Son.
- We have been crucified with Christ, (Galatians 2:20).
- When we were still sinners, Christ died for us, (Romans 5:8).
- When we were still without strength… Christ died for the ungodly, (Romans 5:6).
- This is the wonderful substitutionary work of Christ.
- We have died with Christ, (Romans 6:8).
- We have been buried with Christ, and we have been raised with Christ, (Romans 6:4).
Christ’s identification with us in our weakness and sin was necessary so that we may be identified with His righteousness and strength.
Galatians 2:20 ESV I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
As soon as we enter into this fellowship with Jesus Christ, we enter into a new life. Jesus Christ has taken you up and has borne your sin, shame, sickness and judgment on the cross. He has identified with you. As a result of His taking us up, He has made it possible for a glorious and dramatic transition in our lives. As soon as you were called into the fellowship of God’s Son and responded, God the Holy Spirit came along and gave witness that we belong to Christ.
2 Corinthians 1:21-22 NLT It is God who enables us, along with you, to stand firm for Christ. He has commissioned us, and He has identified us as His own by placing the Holy Spirit in our hearts as the first installment that guarantees everything He has promised us.
What is the implication of this change?
Galatians 2:20 ESV I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Since we have been identified with God’s Son, we have the privilege to walk in fellowship with Him.
We are identified with Christ.
2 Peter 1:3-5 NLT By His divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know Him, the one who called us to Himself by means of His marvelous glory and excellence. And because of His glory and excellence, He has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share His divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires. In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge,
Spend some time thinking about the full implication of your connection with Jesus Christ.
By His own marvelous glory and excellence, God has called us to Himself. Because of His glory and excellence, He has given us great and precious promises. These promises enable us to share His divine nature and escape the world’s corruption. As a result, God makes us rich, full, and free in Christ Jesus.
Consider the fact that you have been called out of your past and have been identified with Jesus Christ and every thing that involves. We must start identifying with Christ in what we say and do. Expect, believe, and suppose that God knows the full implications of our connection with Christ. At the same time, we must come to believe and know that we have been made partakers in Christ Jesus. When we are identified with Him and are in fellowship with Jesus, we are brought into His life of victory and power. Pay attention to what God’s Word unveils and reveals about our inheritance and relationship in Christ. So we must listen, have faith in, and live in the rights, privileges, and power He has made available in Christ. His Words are Spirit and they are life to us. Bind these words to your heart and mind and start identifying yourself with Jesus Christ. The word of your confession and the faith in your heart must acknowledge who you are and what you have become. Consider the full life that we now have in Christ Jesus and stop allowing yourself to live below that standard. God has elevated you into fellowship with His Son, and has identified you with Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Turn to Ephesians and take a look at this with me.
Ephesians 1:3 NLT All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ.
Ephesians 1:19-20 NLT I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms.
Ephesians 2:6 NLT For He raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 3:10 NLT God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display His wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
Ephesians 6:12 NLT For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.
Do you understand the implications of what this means? God is going to demonstrate His great wisdom and power through your life. When we are identified with Christ, God uses us to display His wisdom to the spirit world. Do you see what He has invested in you?
Romans 8:37-39 NKJV Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Jesus Christ has carried our death sentence to the cross, has borne our sickness and disease, and identified with our circumstances and habits. Now through Him, we have been enabled to identify with His victory, life, power, and nature.Think about the implications of what He has done in you and how that has changed your life.
- In 2 Peter 1:4, we are made partakers of His divine nature.
- 1 John 5:13 tells us we have eternal life in us.
- In John 15:5, Jesus is the vine and we are the branches.
- In 1 Corinthians 6:15, “Our bodies are members of Christ…”
When we start identifying with Jesus Christ, the way that we live takes a new level in Christ. When you fellowship with Him in this manner, you begin enjoying the benefits of what He has accomplished. You can take advantage of the riches of grace that are in Jesus Christ. God will begin revealing His manifold wisdom through your life and will expose His power to the world through you.
Galatians 2:20 NKJV I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
Within this fellowship with God’s Son, we are being enabled to live by faith in the Son of God. This new life in Christ, has delivered us out of the weakness and destructions of our past and we are made strong in the Lord.
Listen to what John says about your new position in Christ.
1 John 4:4 NKJV You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the One Who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
This has become our testimony in Christ. “I belong to Jesus and He is living and working within me.” As a result, God is going to demonstrate His Own wisdom and glory through us. This means that He is ready to freely work in the believer’s life.
What does that mean? You have been identified as His own and the Lord is going to work in you. He will break the powers of every spiritual authority. He will make us powerful in Christ.
Ephesians 2:10 NKJV For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
You need to get the full meaning of this. You have been called into the fellowship of God’s Son, and have been identified as God’s glorious, powerful, and holy sons and daughters. God is prepared to do what is necessary to accomplish this in you.
Ephesians 1 talks about this identification with Christ.
Ephesians 1:19-20 NLT I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe Him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated Him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms.
What is our testimony and experience?
Our testimony reflects our fellowship and identification with the Lord Jesus Christ. God has brought us into Jesus Christ and is working in us with the same power that raised Christ from the dead. We have become the temple of the Holy Spirit.
This is the goal of identification with Jesus Christ.God has made incredible things available to you. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Can you identify with that? God has said, “You are mine.” He has claimed your life. He has empowered you with the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit. He is making you mighty through God to the pulling down of the strongholds of the enemy.
