God is moving in the earth! There is no surprise that when the Spirit of God is moving, a corresponding response from spiritual forces of darkness is evident. Often, public policy and the media are the visible presentation of this conflict. Great attention is being directed at “how I identify.”
There should be no confusion about who we are, as Christ-followers. In Christ, we are the righteousness of God. In Him, we have been justified. Through His blood, we have been sanctified. As Christ-followers, the blood of Jesus has canceled all of Satan’s claims against us. All the things that separate us become irrelevant at the foot of the cross.
Prior to his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, the Apostle Paul identified himself in many ways: “Circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless” (Philippians 3:5-6). After he met Jesus, all those definitions lost their significance. He said, “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith” (Philippians 3:8-9).
You see, Jesus has to make it to the place in our self-awareness and our own personal estimation that everything else that could describe us, promote us, and that we would put on our resume, is secondary to the surpassing greatness of knowing Him. It takes maturity to get there. We’ll have to wrestle with that. We’ll have to take points of our pride and self-promotion and pin them to the mat in order to let Jesus rise above them.
Apart from the person of Jesus, we have no standing with God—we’re stuck in our guilt, our sin, our inadequacy, and our shortcomings. Jesus is the stabilizing component of our lives, and our goal is to make Him Lord of our lives and be transformed into His image.
In Isaiah 20:28, the Lord tells us through the prophet, “I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation. The one who trusts will never be dismayed.” Even when nations change and empires come and go, Jesus and our identity in Him remain our sure foundation. This empire that has defined our existence up until now may very well be passing away—that’s a part of history. I would regret it if we forfeited our liberties and freedoms because of our selfishness and our rebellion against God, but it won’t change the foundation of our faith.
People are working busily to destroy the foundational principles and values that have enabled the blessings of God to come to our lives and our nation. We need to stand in what we believe and have the willingness to say, “I disagree. I appreciate your right to that opinion, but I don’t agree with it, and I won’t be silent while you shout it.”
In this season, God is bringing alignment into our lives. The shaking is going to get worse, and it’s time to move beyond having a theoretical faith to actually believing it, and then practicing what we profess to believe. It’s time to remember who we are in Christ, so we can see our world and ourselves with God’s perspective.
When we make our relationship with Jesus the cornerstone of who we are, we find a confidence and boldness that’s beyond us. As we align ourselves with Him, we will be able to hear His voice so we can follow Him and lean into our assignments. When we choose to focus on the Light and bring the light into our world, the darkness must flee.
It’s true that cultivating this type of faith requires attention and intention—but I want to be known as a person who is yielded to the authority of Jesus. I want to be willing to follow Him recklessly, boldly, and with determination. In Acts 13:22, the Lord says of David, “He would do anything I ask him to do.” I would like to become that person. Wouldn’t you like the Lord to say that about you?
— Pastor Allen Jackson