What you do stems from who you are. As Christians, we live from our identity, not for our identity. We are defined by who we are in Christ, not by what we do or do not do for Christ. Christ defines who we are by who He is and what He has done for us, in us, and through us. Understanding this information is the key to your transformation.

When you know who you are, you know how to live. Only if your identity is rooted in your relationship with God, above the ever-changing circumstances of your life, can your identity withstand life and enable you to navigate any situation. Satan wages war on our identity because he knows it might be the surest way to destroy the relationship between us and our God.

Satan refused to accept the identity God had given him and sought to forge a new identity outside of God. He tempts us to do the same, which is demonic. God created you with an identity, and Satan wants you to live from a counterfeit identity. The demonic war against identity began when our first parents, Adam and Eve, encountered the serpent who was “more cunning” than anything God had created.

(1) The serpent began by attacking God’s very identity: “The serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not certainly die. For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.‘”

(2) As a Christian, you must base your identity on two things, perhaps the most important you can learn by studying the Bible:

1. who God truly is and;
2. What God says you truly are.

It’s not surprising that the demonic attack begins on these two fronts, Satan giving a counterfeit identity to both God and you. If you have a wrong view of God and/or who you are in relation to God, then everything in your life becomes uncontrollable, as was the case with Adam and Eve. Satan wanted them to attain an identity by rebelling and living apart from God so that “you will be like God”. Just before that, “God said:

“Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness“…

(3) So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” God created us in his “likeness,” and all we have to do is receive that identity. When Satan tempted our first parents to become “like God,” he was lying because they were already created in the likeness of God, and all they had to do was trust it by faith.

Satan tried the same with Jesus. Luke 4:1-13 says Jesus spent forty days “being tempted by the devil.” Then, “the devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God‘”. Satan attacked Jesus’s identity as the Son of God. Just before that, at Jesus’s baptism, God the Father had said, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.“

(4) There is no authority in all creation equal to or higher than God the Father. When He says Jesus is the Son of God, it’s an eternal fact. With the Trinity present at Jesus’s baptism, the Holy Spirit descends to enable Jesus to live out the identity given to Him by God, and He does the same for Christians. Do you also see how Jesus operates from the identity received from the Father and not for an identity achieved by Himself? Before Jesus preached a sermon, performed a miracle, or cast out a demon, the Father was “pleased” with Him. The same goes for you.

You are a child of God, and this identity is secure. You can operate from this identity in joy and gladness, knowing the Father’s love is assured. Demonic forces frequently attack Christians in the realm of their identity, but most of us are unaware. Like a poker player with a “tell,” Satan’s subtle behavior is detectable. When addressing Adam, Jesus, and you, the demonic realm uses the word “you” in the second person. To Adam and Eve, Satan said:

“You will not die” and “You will be like God.” Addressing Jesus, Satan said twice: “If you are the Son of God“.

When you talk about yourself, you use the first-person pronoun “I”. When someone else addresses you, they use the second-person pronoun “you”. When a physical being speaks to us in the second person, we easily recognize it as someone else. But when a spiritual being speaks to us in the second person, we must decide if we hear God or the devil and his demons. Sometimes when a demon speaks to us, we can easily ignore that it’s a demon because it’s not visible. Here are some examples of common attacks by Satan against believers’ identities, which are false lies seeking to undermine the truth of what God says about His people:

You are worthless.

You are a failure.

You get what you deserve.

You will never change.

You are hopeless.

You are disgusting.

You are not a true Christian.

God is fed up with you.

If people knew how you really are, they would all hate you.

You will probably go to hell.

You should kill yourself.

These kinds of things are demonic. Our Father does not say such things to His children. It’s tragic to see some people neglect demons and think they’re saying horrible things to themselves. They wrongly assume they’re speaking negatively to themselves and have a poor self-image when in reality, they are under attack. This leads to self-loathing. Worse, some people confuse demonic messages with a word from God. This leads to contempt for God, as Satan is so cunning that he will try to make you believe his attack actually comes from your heavenly Father.

When you receive a message regarding your identity in the second person, you must test it against the Word of God. This is what Jesus did. When Satan attacked Jesus’s identity, he kept quoting Scripture because truth drives out lies and light drives out darkness. Jesus kept saying, “It is written…” and quoting Scripture. Jesus didn’t get defensive and wasn’t compelled to argue. Jesus let the battle play out between God’s enemy and God’s Word because it’s a battle the Word always wins.

If you forget this when the enemy attacks your identity, you’ll end up like the sad story of Gladys. You’ll have a God who loves you and is present with you every day like a husband, but you won’t remember who He is or who you are…

This text is an excerpt from the book “CHRISTIANITY AND ITS CHALLENGES” written by Jérémie TCHINDEBE.

We invite you to read the following article “The Problems of Christianity“.