The Ugly Lie of Self-Identity



By Barry York - Posted at Gentle Reformation:

When Satan entered the Garden of Eden as a serpent, he used his craftiness to confuse Adam and Eve about their identity. After casting doubts about the Lord's Word, creating confusion over what God had actually said, and casting aspersions on the Lord's character, Satan then cut to the chase. Eat from this tree, he told them, and "you will be like God" (Genesis 3:5). He was telling them to determine for themselves what is good and evil, right and wrong.

Satan is surely foisting this lie with great effect on this current generation. Consider five common ways people are trying to be like God today.

Be like God and create your own identity. God alone is self-existent. His covenant name of Jehovah, translated as LORD in most English Bibles, means "I am who I am." As such, "He made us, not we ourselves" as the 100th Psalm testifies.

Yet so many lost souls around us, denying the essential truth that they were created by God, believe instead their identity is self-wrought. Our culture believes that who you are is determined by you alone. That's why every commencement speaker tells graduates to "follow your own dreams." In our individualistic culture, people are blasphemously telling themselves, "I am who I am." Social media such as Facebook and Instagram reinforces this misconception. People put up images and share the facts about themselves they want others to see, leaving out the areas of their lives they do not want known. Like a Picasso painting, their social media identity is a composite of distorted parts of who they really are.

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