These days it’s popular to identify as something or someone other than ourselves. People pick their own pronouns or choose their own sexual orientation. Our roles in our career or at our company rules our identity more than God does. Troubles and trauma—real hardships in life—tell us, and we believe it, that we’ll always be a victim instead of a victor in Christ.
Children think they are superheroes, which if it’s fantasy is okay, but then adults act as if we are infinite and hold superpowers when we cram our calendars with too many commitments and scroll on screens while ignoring our spiritual, emotional and physical health.
What about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (read Daniel chapter 3). How did they identify when thrown into the fire?
- Nobodies
- Somebodies
- Their self-chosen identity
- Servants of God
They said to the king holding their lives in his hands, “We do not need to defend ourselves … the God we serve is able.” There it is. That’s how you walk through fire.
Stop rising to your own defense and striving to be your version of you. Then you are limited to you, compared to the Most High God Almighty who holds in his hands the king, the fire, and everything else you think is holding you in their hands.
Live as a servant of God. He has given you an identity connected to his own Son Jesus Christ, as proven by the fourth figure in the fire—yes, that was Jesus. Standing in the flames with sinners he forgives and loves. Protecting the lives and identities of those who believe in him to not get burned but blessed. So trust yourself less, and Jesus more.
Your opinion or interpretation or choice of your own identity is not stronger than the fires of sin, is not smarter than the devil’s furnace of hell or temptations or lies, is not secure enough to survive the flames of oppression, persecution, abuse or injustice. But God. God is stronger. God is smarter. God is more secure than all those.
These men said it, “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand” (Daniel 3:17).
Remember those three words: God is able. Repeat them in times of temptation or trouble. The God who created you, saved you by his Son, and empowers your faith by his Spirit, is able. You are not a nobody when you are God’s somebody. Even a fiery furnace cannot take your identity away.
PRAYER: God, you are able to give me the best identity, and you call me to the version of myself that your grace has made. Teach me to live it, believe it, and with it serve you in easy times and hard times. Amen.
SPIRITUAL NEXT STEP: What blazing furnace are you avoiding out of fear because of a false identity? This false identity cannot save or help you the way Jesus can. What next step of faith do you need to take? What promise of Jesus do you need to believe?
