Are you at Risk for Identity Theif?

     In today’s culture you can hardly go a day that you do not hear warnings about protecting yourself against identity thief. I admit, I am not as careful as I should be. It’s not that I do nothing but I do not worry about it at every turn. I do not worry about an invisible big brother out to get me. I am not naive that it can happen but I refuse to live in fear. I do know though, that identity theft causes huge troubles for people. Their life can be turned upside down with no warning. Before they know it, their lives are in turmoil and the cleaning up process can be difficult.
     I have been reading a book preparing for next year’s marriage’s retreat. It is not like me to get ready this early but I think the book is very interesting. I am on my second time through. The book is titled, “Why Good Men Get Angry?” It is really a book that is beneficial to both genders but I have always believed that the majority of men need help to learn to handle their anger moments and according to the book the statistics proves that. The book speaks of an identity crisis. The book says, “At the moment you became a believer you become a new person in Christ. The ‘new you’ is your true identity. Even as a believer, however, you still possess the flesh; that part of you that craves gratification apart from Christ. When you allow your flesh to control your thinking and drive your behavior, you suffer the worse kind of identity theft. You are no longer acting in accordance to your new and true identity you have through Christ, but you are allowing your flesh to define how you think and act.”
     This is definitely a new way of looking at things. I am no longer the person who is a slave to my flesh. When I am giving control to my flesh, I am not acting like the person I have become. I think our greatest problem is ‘who’ we believe we are. So many of us accept Jesus and know that He now takes up residence in our hearts but we never move pass that knowledge. We still see ourselves the way we were before Jesus. It is as if we play dress up with Jesus when we want to look good, but when we get alone, we put our old clothes on and sit in the corner, and are sad because of who we are. What we need to do is throw away our old clothes. One of the greatest experience in losing weight is giving away all of my ‘fat’ clothes. I never wanted to see them again, let alone be back wearing them. We need to have the same attitude with the old person we were. Just because we take a step back occasionally, does not mean we have returned to the old us. We have a new and true identity and that identity doesn’t go away just because we mess up.
   What identity are you wearing? Are you letting your flesh steal your identity? When are you going to accept who you are now in Jesus and stand in your new and true identity?

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

2 Corinthians 5:17

And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.

Ezekiel 35:26-27