Judges 6:12,15 (NKJV) And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him, and said to him, “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valour!”…So he said to Him, “O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”
Many of us have allowed the world to determine our worth. We range from one extreme to the other: strong self-ego to under confidence. Based on Gideon’s reply to the angel of God, he belongs to the latter.
Someone with a strong self-ego will typically be well-educated, from a good family, have lived the good life and reached the top of the corporate ladder. However, their challenge will be when their circumstances change, and they no longer find themselves in that category or class of society. When they experience inconsistency between their circumstances and their self-image, they will fall back on their historical self-perception, rather than let the new information change their perspective. They may experience an identity crisis.
Gideon looked at himself as coming from the weakest clan and the least looked upon in his father’s house. The wrong voices may have moulded his thinking and self-worth, thus creating a wrong identity for him. This is why he was hiding in fear and threshing wheat at the winepress. Gideon lacked the confidence that God was able to use him.
Because our own identity is earned or achieved, we will feel a sense of loss or failure when our situation changes and struggle to adjust. Because we often identify ourselves more in our “doing” than in our “being”, we tend to package ourselves with our looks, physiques, family background, academic excellence, people we connect with, the company that we work for, our possessions and lifestyle to boost our worth to others. However, when any of these is taken away from us, we will feel worthless.
This kind of self-image has been formed by what men say about us and their affirmation. Because we live in a fallen and broken world, there will never be a perfect self-image created by ourselves and the people around us. We will fail and people will fail us.
The “Midianites” in our lives that we are trying to overcome are our “old man”, or our identity based on our sense of self-worth. It could subtly become a “god” in our own sight which we are proud of until everything that we hold dearly crumbles. It is the wrong foundation for our identity because it is temporal, or what the Bible calls “sinking sand” which will not hold us up in a storm.
In contrast, because the identity in Christ is given to us freely, it can never be taken from us.
Judges 6:16 (NKJV) And the Lord said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man.”
Sermon Series: How to Do Well in Your New Identity?
不变的身份
士师记6:12-15 12 耶和华的使者向基甸显现，对他说：“大能的勇士啊，耶和华与你同在！” … 15 基甸说：“主啊，我有何能拯救以色列人呢？我家在玛拿西支派中是至贫穷的，我在我父家是至微小的。”
我们中的许多人一直让世界来决定我们的价值。我们从一个极端到另一个极端：过于自负到不自信。根据基甸对耶和华使者的回答，他属于后者。
具有强烈自负感的人通常受过良好的教育，出生在一个好家庭，过着美好的生活，并晋升到公司中到的高层。然而，当他们的情况发生变化，而不再处于社会的那个类别或阶层时，他们将面临挑战。当他们经历了环境和自我形象之间的不一致时，他们会回到过去的自我认知，而不是让新信息改变他们的观点。他们可能会经历身份危机。
基甸觉得自己是来自一个至贫的支派，他在父家是至微小的。那些错误的声音可能塑造了他的思想和自我价值观，从而为他创造了一个错误的身份。这就说明了为什么他因害怕而躲在酒榨那里打麦子。基甸缺乏信心，不相信 神能够使用他。
因为我们的身份是靠努力得来或实现的，所以当我们的情况变得不利而需要努力做出改变时，我们会感到失落或失败。因为大多数的时候，我们更多地从自己的“行为”，而不是我们的“本质”来认定自己，我们喜欢包装自己的外表、体型、出身、学术成就、身边交往的人、工作单位、我们的资产和生活方式，以提高我们对他人的价值。然而，当这些东西中的任何一个被夺走时，我们会觉得自己毫无价值。
这种自我形象是由人们对我们的评价和肯定而形成的。因为我们生活在一个堕落和破碎的世界里，完美的自我形象永远不会被我们自己和周围的人创造出来。我们会失败，人也会辜负我们。
“老我”或者我们对自己身份价值的看法是我们在生命中努力克服的“米甸人”。它可能会潜移默化地地成为我们眼中的“神”，我们为其感到骄傲直到我们所珍视的这一切都破灭。这是我们身份的错误根基，因为它是暂时的，就像圣经所说的“沙土”，无法在风暴来临时支撑我们。
相反的，因为基督里的身份是白白赐给我们的，所以它永远不能从我们身上夺走。
讲章系列：如何演绎好你的新身份?
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