If You Are The Son Of God

Luke 4: 1 - 4, Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry. And the devil said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." But Jesus answered him, saying, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.'" NKJV 

Do you know your spiritual identity? I ask you this question for a very important reason. When we don't know who we are in Christ, or we don't receive our identity from Christ, then Satan will use our ignorance against us. We're told in Hosea 4: 6 that the people of God are destroyed for a lack of knowledge (Truth). Therefore, now that we are a new creation in Christ, we should invest the time that is required in prayer and in the study of God's Word to know who we are. If we're born again, then we're not the old man... because he had to die. We can't be two people. 

Jesus never gave into Satan's attempts to make Him prove Himself because He knew who He was. If a person knows who they really are, they won't try to be a people-pleaser or try to fit-in in order to be accepted by others. We must not go-along to get-along at the expense of becoming someone we're not. We know that Jesus knew who He was in the Spirit realm because He didn't act on any of Satan's suggestions to prove Himself. 

Here is something for you to ponder today: Why did Satan want Jesus to prove Himself? Why did Satan care who Jesus really was? If we don't know who we are concerning our spiritual identity, then Satan will use people and situations to make us prove ourselves; and if we oblige him, he will pull us into a snare and entrap us in sin. That's what Satan's desire was for Jesus; However, Jesus knew exactly who He was. Unfortunately, there's the other side of the equation. Remember Adam and Eve? She didn't know who she was spiritually and Satan exploited her ignorance, causing her to commit sin in order to become like God. Did you notice that Satan used identity as a means to entrap her...just like he tried with Jesus?

Nonetheless, why didn't Eve already know that she was created in God's image and blessed by Him? We see now that spiritual ignorance about our new identity can be used by Satan to seduce us into sinning against God. Consequently, Satan tried to get Jesus to prove Himself; he wanted Jesus to go against the will of God and sin. Satan's desire was to bring Jesus into bondage to him so that he could become greater than Jesus. 

Many times throughout the gospels, you will see that the scribes, the Pharisees, and the Jews tried to get Jesus to prove who He was to them. Even when Jesus was hanging on the cross, there were Jews who taunted him and demanded that He come off the cross and prove Himself to them... so that they might believe. Nevertheless, if Jesus had obeyed their unbelieving demands and came down from the cross, do you think God's plan would have been accomplished? Of course, it would not! We can see that Satan is extremely subtle and through this subtlety, he is very effective at pulling people into his web of deceit, and entrapping them in sin.

Jesus never, ever proved Himself to any unbelieving person or demon. All He had to do in order to overcome Satan's temptations was to speak the Word and obey the Father. Therefore, we need to know our new identity in Christ so that we will speak only the Word against our spiritual foes. As a result, we can fully obey God's will and plan, and have a blessed life. Because Jesus never proved Himself, He gave His Father the opportunity to confirm His identity with many signs and wonders. There are many confirmations from His heavenly Father that should have validated to Israel that Jesus was, indeed, the Son of God. Like Jesus, if you walk in your new identity in Christ, not allowing Satan to pull you into one of his divisive ploys, then God will validate you as well. When the enemy comes against you, just be still and know that God has a plan. He will deliver you from your enemies. Knowing you're a child of God and walking in faith will assure you of victory over the enemy.

You Can Do This, 

Pastor Asa Dockery

passion30@whcnorth.org