Identity Matters by Terry Wardle

Author:Terry Wardle [Terry Wardle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abilene Christian University Press
Published: 2017-04-17T00:00:00+00:00

The Wilderness

Jesus had an amazing experience at the Jordan River on the day of his baptism. What an unparalleled moment! The sky opened, the dove descended, and the Father spoke. “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22). Loved. Chosen. Empowered. This was a declaration of union with God.

God announced that Jesus was his child, he was in relationship with him, and, through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, Jesus would walk in fellowship with the Father. God’s word sealed the deal that all Jesus’s core longings would be met in him. His identity was Son, his security assured, his significance rock solid, and his acceptance proclaimed in heaven and on earth. That is what the Father of Love does for his child and his children.

Jesus must have been filled with joy unspeakable. The Scripture says that he left the Jordan full of the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:1). If you have ever been full of the Holy Spirit, you know what that feels like. It is indescribable. There is joy for sure, but also this incredible sense of harmony with God. He feels so close, and you are focused, desiring only what he desires, longing for little more than being one with him. It is a spiritual experience that spills over into the physical, the emotional, even the relational. This is my own weak way of explaining being full of the Spirit, and for Jesus it must have been multiplied exponentially.

This is what God wants us to experience when we rest secure in our identity as his children. There should be—will be—joy. Knowing that we are loved, chosen, and empowered by the Spirit fills us with the indescribable. Union like this brings harmony, and hope, and a perceived-yet-unexplainable nearness to the Father. Like Jesus, we can be full. Full of the Holy Spirit, full of the love of God, and full of confidence that our deepest longings can be met in him. We are his children, and our uniqueness and gifting can be built on that reality.

But there is more to the story. Jesus left the river full of the Spirit, and it was this same Spirit that led him into the wilderness. The evil one was there, and he had one thing in mind: the same thing he has in mind for you and me. He wanted to dupe Jesus, to get him to question the union God had just declared to be true. He wanted Jesus to meet basic core longings in a deal with the devil, a deal many of us make again and again.

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