Pastor Dan’s Blog

IDENTITY GAP

Jacob struggles with God for a blessing. God gives him a new name, . . . a new identity. Unfortunately, Jacob does not receive or accept the new name until later in life. Notice Jacob is renamed Israel but it took close to 40 years for it to come to pass.

Why the gap?

In each of our lives we experience what I call the Identity Gap. Identity Gap is the gap between our conception and God’s intentions. The distance between what we conceive in our minds and God intended in His mind for us to be. It is the gap between being called Israel and living as Israel. Doesn’t matter what name of greatness you have been given if you don’t believe it yourself.

Identity Gap is the space between the revelation (word released) & the incarnation (word lived).

What caused the gap?

Our Pets do. I don’t mean your dog or cat. Pets are an acronym for our Past, our Environment and our Troubles. The same way many people have names for their pets and nurture, care, feed and clean up after them is the same way many of us take care and baby our past, our environment and our troubles. If we are ever going to realize our potential we must get rid of our pets.

Our Past

You can’t change the past. The failures of yesterday cannot be changed. What happened in our past must stay there and we must move forward. Like Pumba from Lion King stated “we must put our behind in our past.” That is why a windshield on a car is so much larger than the rearview mirror because what is in front of you is more important that what is behind you.

Our Environment

We can be paralyzed or empowered by the environment that we are in. Due to the fact many have never seen that which they needed modeled by others, they duplicate what they see on a daily basis. It is easy to duplicate divorce, addiction, bitterness and lust when that is all you see. The good news is that you don’t need to become a product of your environment but your environment can become a product of you. You were created with the ability to transform cultures and environments.

Our Troubles

We have each experienced troubled times in our lives. These experiences become your problem or your promotion. Jacob’s series of troubles were enough to make most men die. His father favored another, his father-in-law tricked him, his love of his life died in child birth, his favorite son is taken & presumed dead and so on. Jacob experienced trouble to the point he exclaimed “all these things are against me.” Every great man have had a pit in their lives. Remember, our pits are our promotion.

Close the gap. Kill the pets.

Tags: ENVIRONMENT, GAP, IDENTITY GAP, INCARNATION, past, REVELATION, TROUBLES

Identity Crisis

Crisis are not always bad. Crisis can become the pathway to promotion.

Jacob ends up in Jabbok River (means “To Empty”) due to a crisis in his life. This crisis leads him into his destiny. This crisis at Jabbok leads to a God encounter for Jacob. This place of emptiness became the place where he would be filled.

Crisis provides:

1. Crisis can create opportunity.

Every crisis has an opportunity connected to it. The problems in life create opportunity for change of direction that we normally wouldn’t make in life otherwise. I have come to realize that most people don’t change until it is painful enough that they have to. We don’t work on our marriage until she leaves us. We don’t get healthy until we have a health scare. We don’t cry out to God until there is problem.

Jacob’s crisis led him to a place called alone. He sends his family away and he finds himself alone. It caused him to seek God in a way he had never done before. His crisis created a desperation to touch God. He didn’t have time to waste, He needed an answer sooner rather than later. His crisis led to promotion.

2. Proof that God is still there.

Jacob sent his family away and he found himself alone. It was in this alone state that he finds God waiting for him. You see, life changing encounters don’t happen in the crowds. God desires to get us in that place called alone and crisis can cause us to feel that way.

In the midst of this major crisis in Jacob’s life, he finds God is waiting for him at Jabbok. Each and every storm in life provides the proof that God is still there. Crisis don’t scare God. He shows off in the storms of our lives. Jacob comes to this alone place and finds that God is still there. In the times you feel like God has left you, the reality is He is still there. He promised to never leave you nor forsake you.

3. Can change the way we walk.

When Jacob finds God waiting for him, his crisis causes him to wrestle with God. He needs God to intervene. This crisis is more than he can stand. He won’t let go. He needs a change. The Angel of the Lord touches his hip and dislocates it and gives him a new name.

When he gets up he no longer walks the same. His dislocated hip cause him to walk with a limp. You could tell that Jacob walked different after his encounter with God. He is no longer the “deceiver” but he is Israel, the “Prince of God”. He has a new name and a new destiny. Our God encounters must cause us to walk differently afterwards.

The crisis in our lives, when responded to correctly, can cause us to walk differently. Don’t fear crisis, embrace it. Each crisis will provide opportunity, prove God is still there and can change the way we walk. Many are wearing labels God never intended you to have. Those labels have effected your destiny. I want to encourage you, you don’t need to wrestle with God, Jesus already paid the price but you do have to claim it. You are a champion, an over comer and royalty.

Walk different today. Walk in destiny.

Tags: Alone, Crisis, God, opportunity, walk

Identity Crisis

Leadership expert Dr. John Maxwell stated, “You are not what you think you are. You are not what others think you are. You are what the most important person in your life thinks you are.”

In other words, we will become what the people we have value for say we are. Kris Vallotton said, “Identity is based on impartation not education.” We don’t learn who we are, identity is imparted by those we hold in high esteem. This principle is both beneficial and dangerous. The desire to accepted or loved by an abusive or manipulative person can be dangerous. You see, until you value God more than any other person in your life you will be at the mercy of others opinions & declarations over your life.

As a result those declaration of identity produce a culture around us. Jacob, deceiver or trickster, created a culture of deception where ever he went. This culture was started by his father (lied), encouraged by his mother (deception), perfected by Jacob (stolen blessing), duplicated in his father in law (changed wages), agreed upon by Leah (switched brides), repeated by Rachel (stolen idols) and ultimately produced by his sons (selling of Joseph).

His identity created a culture.

Now this lifetime of deception has come to a head. His brother Esau, along with 400 men, are making their way towards Jacob. This crisis led him to Jabbok. Jabbok means “To Empty”. We each need a Jabbok experience. We need a place to be emptied from the labels and names attached to our character. Physics has a simple rule . . . two objects cannot occupy the same space. We must first remove what is there before we can filled with something else. The level that we give up determines the level by which we can be filled up. This place was vital to his new identity.

You cannot receive a new identity until you release you present one.

Many are wearing labels God never intended you to have. Those labels have effected your destiny. I want to encourage you, you don’t need to wrestle with God, Jesus already paid the price but you do have to claim it. You are a champion, an over comer and royalty.

Find your Jabbok . . . a place you can empty your past, your mistakes & your labels.

Stinking Thinking

Identity equals Destiny.

If we lose our identity we lose our destiny.

What is identity? Identity, according to Webster’s Dictionary is the state or fact of remaining the same regardless of varying aspects or conditions. In other words, who we are does not change according to circumstances or situations in our lives.

The wisest man to ever lived penned the words in Proverbs 23:7 that “as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” Solomon’s revelation was that the heart was the center of our ability & faculties to ascribe, to calculate and estimate our value. Your heart determines who you are and how you think.

45 A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart. ~ Luke 6:45

If our thinking determines who we are then it stands to reason that the most powerful thing is a thought. The most important thing is the source of that thought. Our thoughts are powerful. They can create. The source of that thought is the most important.

A source will transmit an idea or image, that word or image becomes a thought in our mind. Thoughts conceived become ideas that give birth to ideologies. Ideologies then become beliefs. Beliefs evolve into convictions that produce philosophies. Philosophies become lifestyles that ultimately produce your destiny. It all starts with a thought.

Wrong source . . . wrong destiny. Correct source . . . correct destiny.

That is why Jesus first words He preached were . . .”Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” Repent means to change your thinking. Contrary to popular belief, repentance has little to do with being sorry. It is a 180 degree shift in thinking that changes your direction.

Who we are will never change until our thinking is changed first. That thinking will not change until we adjust our ears to the proper source.

Who are you listening to today?

Tags: Destiny, idea, identity, thinking, thought

The Reborne Identity

Have you ever seen those identity theft commercials from Citibank where there someone is speaking but the voice doesn’t match their body? Identity theft was a 54 billion dollar problem last year and is only growing. However, identity theft did not begin in the digital age; it started way back in the beginning.

Satan’s initial attack was on the woman’s identity, self-worth & self-esteem. His proposal was that eating of the tree would make her like God. His implication was that there was something lacking in her; that she didn’t measure up. His attack on her identity was tragic in the fact that she was already like God! She was created in the same image of God that Adam had been.

Our identity equals our destiny. If we lose our identity we lose our destiny.

In the Hebrew culture your name was more than a moniker, it was your identity, a description of your character and a prophetic declaration of your capacity and potential. Each father carefully chose the name for his children based on this knowledge. When Jacob’s youngest son was born, his mother named him Ben-Oni (Son of my sorrow) as she died in the laboring process.

Imagine going through life with the label and constant reminder that you killed your mother? Jacob, whose name was changed from Jacob (trickster or deceiver) to Israel (Prince of God) after wrestling with God, knew the power of a label. He would not allow his son to be labeled as a source of sorrow and changed his name to Benjamin (Son of my right hand). Jacob changed his son’s destiny. Like Jacob we have the power to change the destiny in people’s lives by the names we call release over them.

Adam was given dominion and authority to name all the animals in the garden. Whatever he named them, that is what they were recognized as. He had the God given authority to ascribe identity and value to each living creature. However, he never gave the woman a proper name until after the fall. The woman was looking for identity . . . a name . . . more importantly . . . a destiny.

Eve lacked identity because Adam failed to release her potential with a name. All he calls her is woman in Genesis 2:23, but no personal identity, no prophetic destiny. It is not until after the fall is her personal identity given and potential released.

²⁰ Then the man—Adam—named his wife Eve, because she would be the mother of all who live. ~ Genesis 3:20

Before this time Eve had no children . . . after Adam’s declaration she begins to produce and have children. They could not fulfill God’s command to “be fruitful and multiply” until Adam released the potential inside of the woman and called her “Eve”. When we receive and accept our God given identity we too have the power to fulfill God’s commands.

It doesn’t matter what label the world, your parents, your ex or your enemies have placed on you. God’s intention for us is greatness, influence & impact. God wants to give you a Reborne Identity!

Tags: capacity, Destiny, identity, identity theft, name