Post 9: The Mystery of the Identity Crisis

I attend one of the super megachurches in the ATL.

People have given me much crap about that over the years.

That's okay. I'm grown. I'll be alright. Been a member for 8 years, and still going strong.

However, I rarely attend church on Sundays.

I like to go on Friday evenings. Or, if I'm off, I like to catch a Wednesday or Friday morning service.

Why? Because I like the assistant ministers. Certain ones cover certain bible studies, and I just like to catch them from time to time.

I find them to be better teachers than my pastor.

That may or may not be true. But I always come away with a lot of notes. And I like my Friday evening services. It's a good end to my week, and 100% of the time, everything is always related to what I've been dealing with mentally during the week.

So I'ma run with that. And catch the Sunday and Wednesday internet streams. (I still go from time to time.)

Anyway, there is one particular assistant pastor who gave a most interesting sermon some 5 years ago I believe.

I'm not sure if it was on a Wednesday or Friday evening... all I know it was raining cats and dogs that night. I had to REALLY fight to get there, and I know everyone was soaking wet walking up in there that night.

I almost took my tail home. But for some reason, I felt the need to get there.

(And I've learned when I feel that way, I best get there... through rain, snow, ice, or fire, lol).

But this particular pastor is interesting. He's a simple man, a bit slight, about 5'8". He's a professional barber (his haircut and beard are always meticulous). He has a slight speech impediment. You can tell he's been working on it. He is from the Islands, and has that interesting Carribean accent, but it is smoothed out with a British accent or something like that. I've never been able to figure it out.

But he had mentioned in several sermons that he had been very self conscious of his voice. Afraid to even talk because he would get joned out and picked on.

Worse yet, all his teachers would tell him that he would be never be nothing or nobody when he grew up because of his voice. He would never achieve anything in life because of his perculiar voice.

I don't know why adults would tell a 7 year old child such. That could scar a child for life.

So for 20 years, he was afraid to talk much. He suffered from depression and low self esteem.

Something changed though. And he found his voice.

He now talks much about being proud of who you are. Because you have a purpose in this life.

His areas of expertise and ministry, from what I can tell over the years are walking in love and something else:

Identity crisis.

And being VERY clear of who you are in God's eyes.

He seems to be a good counselor for people who are in the midst of depression, fear, and identity crisis.

And that was the subject of that message on that stormy evening.

I heard the most important sermon of my life on a windswept stormy night.

And it was so important that I went and bought the CD.

And wrote it out word for word.

Just the introduction of it. This is the intro, before he even told us to open our bible to chapter such-n-such. I think he talked for an hour afterwards. I don't remember all that. I was just awestruck with what he said was "on his heart" that evening.

And here's what I transcribed from that CD.

I have read this here more times then I can count. It strikes a chord with me. It jacks my faith up a notch.

So here's what he said, with a hard rain pattering on the church chapel:

“God loves you, with His undying, never failing, unconditional love, and He wants to do you good, and make you happy.

You’re the crown of God’s creation, the apple of His eyes, marked by His love, and the focus of all His attention.

See when you know that, people, when you know who you are in God? Anything you hear, that is taught to you, you know you’re able to accomplish it, because you know who you are.

In the beginning, before God gave man authority, He let him know who he was.

“You are created in My image, you are created in My likeness, NOW go subdue the earth.”

He crowned man with glory and honor before He gave man his charge, so man knew his position in God before He stepped out to perform.

The same thing He did with Jesus: Before Jesus did any miracles, he heard a voice from heaven validating his position:

“You are my Son, I am well pleased.”

Jesus was graced to go heal the sick, cleanse the leper, raise the dead, cast out devils because he knew who he was.

The attack has always been on man’s IDENTITY. If you lose your identity (if you don’t know who you are, if you don’t know your position) you will not be able to fulfill the mandate that God has for your life.

Paul did the same thing. In every one of the epistles that Paul wrote, he says, I am a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace and peace, God’s ability, and shalom and wholeness be multiplied to you, to the church, to the faithful, to the call. He always told them who he was before he told them how to walk.

You gotta know who you are…

If I don’t know nothing else, people… If I don’t know one more word in the bible, I am convinced, I am FULLY persuaded, with all my mind, my heart, my soul, my pancreas, my liver, my lung, my kidney, my hair follicle, my fingernail, that God loves me with his undying, never failing, unconditional love, and He wants to do me good and make me happy.

I am convinced, fully persuaded, 100%, that I am the crown of God’s creation, I’m the apple of His eye. I am marked by His love and the focus of all His affection.

If I don’t know nothing else, I know that.

Now everything else He asks me to do, I know that I am equipped to do it because of my position in Him.

I’m the righteousness of God, I am as righteous as I’ll ever be, I am as righteous as Jesus himself, will never ever be any more righteous, because my righteousness is of Him.

You are too!

But you got to stay on that, put it in your mouth, until you are FULLY persuaded that that’s who you are!

You are created only a little lower than God, crowned with glory…

But you say, Minister P, you don’t understand, you just don’t know… my life is tore up from the floor up!!!

Well? It doesn’t matter! Why?

Because you are not who you are based on what you have done. Don’t let what you’ve been through, or what has been done to you, validate you! Don’t let those actions determine who you are!

You are patented by God.
You are one of a kind.
There will never be another you.
You were deliberately created with a unique purpose, that no one that was, is, or is to come, can fulfill but YOU.

You put a spring in God’s step every morning you wake up…
You put a smile on God’s face.

You are the “it” in all the cosmos…

When one considers all the works of God’s hands, the stars, the heavens, the moons which he has ordained:

What is Oldgirl, that you are mindful of her?
Why you take care so much of OldGirl?
Why you love OldGirl so much?
Why you favor OldGirl so much?

Why God???

Of everything that he has created, the earth is like the head of a pin, we are a planet in this whole cosmos, and this awesome, infinite, timeless, endless God, from beginning to end, the first, the last, the beginning to end, He that was, is, and is to come, the unlimited One came down to a speck of dust and he took up you and mold you out of that speck of dust and gave you dominion over everything that exist!

What makes you so special? I’ll tell you:

You are His offspring.
You are His baby.
You are the life of God in flesh.
You are the essence of who God is.

I can’t see Him, but I see Him in you. But when I see you, I know that God is.

You gotta KNOW that.

Learn faith, learn this, learn that, learn it all….

But learn one thing: God’s unconditional love for you.

God wants you to know that you are His sole possession.

If you could go and count the number of sand on the seashore, God’s thoughts towards you outnumber the sand.

Heaven’s agenda from the fall of man until the end of time is that you win in this life!

The Holy Ghost, the Word of God, the blood of Jesus, Jesus himself, the Angels, and everything else of God… God has set in array for you to win!

So…

Why you crying?
Why you fretting?
Why you worrying?

It’s over. As far as God is concerned, it is done.

You are victorious.
You are triumphant.
You will never lose.
You were created to win.
You’re a winner, not a loser.
You are the head, and not the tail.
You are above only, you will never ever be beneath.

I don’t care if you feel like you are under a rock, that’s a LIE!

That is Satan’s attack… He still is on, and after your IDENTITY. Because if he can get your identity, he will stop you from fulfilling God’s plan and purpose for your life. He wants your identity. He doesn’t want you to know who you are. He wants you messed up, confused, trying to figure out:

Who am I? What am I?

Because if he can get you to start thinking that way, you’ll never think the way of God.

You’re special, people.
You’re a diamond chip from the big Diamond Himself.

I don’t care what your Mama told you, what the kids in school told you, I don’t care who told you what.

You are a chip off God… makes you as special as God Himself.

You are equipped to fulfill God’s will for your life. You will!

I want you to be convinced people… You are special.

The molestation that happened to you as a child?
It was an attack on your identity.
The rape that happened to you as a child?
It was an attack, an attack on your identity.
The abuse that happened to you as a child?
That was Satan’s attack on your identity.

Think about it: God called Moses as a deliverer, and the first thing Satan did was rise up in Pharoah… he wanted so bad that one little boy, he was willing to kill every male child in all of Egypt just to get that one.

You are a solution to an existing problem, and Satan’s plan is to eradicate that solution. So he decided to come at you by any means necessary, from a seed… he started attacking you from sperm form.

He was after Jesus, he was after that bloodline, and he poked and tried to find out… He wasn’t sure who it was, but he poked. And when Jesus was born, Satan moved up in a man name Herod, and Herod couldn’t figure out which child it was, so he just said “Just kill all the male babies!”

God don’t change, He is the same.

Satan is the same: steal, kill, and destroy by any means necessary.

Attack their identity! Attack their identity!
Wipe them out! Wipe them out!
Kill God’s creation? I’ll kill God’s purpose!

Rape them! Molest them!
Do whatever it takes to destroy who they are!
Destroy their minds! Mess them up!
They’ll never think they are special.
They’ll always think it’s their fault.

The divorce was an attack on your identity.
Satan knows that a house divided can’t stand. If he can get mama and daddy to divorce, he’s going to get some man to try to show that little girl love, and he’s going to rape her, he’s going to prostitute her, but he’s gonna destroy her mindset of who she is, and she’ll Never be able to fulfill God’s plan for her life.

Every abuse you went through, people… it was Satan.
People want to know, they wonder…why God, why did God allow? Why God?

But in the end, you will win.
So I want you to know, it ain’t your fault.
Don’t let that hold you down.
Don’t become a victim, you’re a victor.
Don’t let it hold you in victim position.
You are a victor, you are more than a conqueror.
Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.
He’ll always cause you to triumph.

You win, I don’t care what it looks like, you win!
You win, I don’t care what it looks like, YOU WIN!

This has nothing to do with my message, but it has everything to do with who you are in God and the scheme and plan that God has for your life.

You get that?

Look in the mirror and tell yourself everyday:

“I am a winner, I am destined for greatness.
I am deliberately created with a unique purpose.”

No other human being that was, is, or is to come, will ever have the same thought process that you have. You are a dimension of God that the world is waiting to be expressed. What you have in you, the world doesn’t know that side of God yet. He wants to expose Himself through you.

But you got to get with the Creator, so He can show Himself to you, and show you what portion of his deity He wants to express through you.”

Very interesting indeed... A very interesting take on the root of identity isshas up in there.

He went on to open his bible after that.

That place was very quiet. All you could hear was the flipping of Bible pages and the hard patter of rain on the chapel roof.

Goodness. That there is a man who feels good about himself, despite his upbringing. That is a man transformed in his thinking, who doesn't mind reaching down and lifting up people's spirits, and helping them get back to a place where they believe in themselves.

I tell you, I have been thinking about this intro, this something that didn’t even have anything to do with that evenings sermon. It has really stuck in my mind, because it uplifted me…

It jacked my faith way up… Still jacking up my faith some 5 years later.

It was worth fighting through a rainstorm, just to hear that.

Whenever I am discombobulated, I pull out that little intro... and read and ponder it.

Because if he can feel that good about himself after all he has been through in life...

Then so can I.