It was a normal Tuesday. Meeting in the morning until roughly noon. Lunch time. Taco Tuesday means the weekly trek to Taco Bell. The usual order: Classic Combo – substitute soft for the hard (IYKYK), Chipotle Ranch Chicken Burrito and a large Baja Blast! Fire Sauce!  Ordered on the app, short drive, pick it up inside and sit down to eat. Delicious! Return to the office and start in on the afternoon to do list. A little before 3 o’clock, I get a notification that they have updated my Taco Bell app as per my request. Problem is I didn’t request an update. A quick check of my app and my phone number was now different. Quick…change password. Delete credit card on file. Check previous orders. Yep..Chalupas in Las Vegas; Locos Tacos in Orlando; and 3 Berry Raspberry Freezes with cinnamon twists in North Carolina – in all 4 orders totalling just under $80 after the door dash charges. All these orders were made within 5 minutes of each other. A fraud alert text soon followed. A quick phone call to MasterCard Customer Service and all erroneous charges declined, deleted from my account and new card in the mail. This had quickly become an abnormal Tuesday!

As I thought about Taco Bell assuming these four orders on the app were all being made by me and that somehow a glitch (can’t image 4 separate individuals all hit me at once) put me in 3 cities at the same time. We had an identity problem. You can’t blame the app. How was it to know who was making those orders. My only identity is in my profile – name, email, phone, birthday. That really doesn’t say much about me. And that got me thinking. My identity. Many struggle today with identity issues. Christians and non-Christians alike. For the Christian our identity, how we are to be known to the world, is a child of God, a follower of Jesus. When we accept Jesus as our Savior, Paul told the Corinthians that we become a new creation and the old things, the old life, has passed away. (2 Corinthians 5:17). Our identity is no longer in the old sin-natured, spiritually-dead self but in the new made-alive-in-Christ life. We are even given the Holy Spirit, third person of the Trinity, to live inside us and come alongside us helping us live out this new identity in Christ.  But, let’s be completely honest, we don’t always live according to the new identity. ItSometimes we choose to live abnormally, or subnormally and mirror the old way, the sin way.

Paul encouraged the Galatians with these words, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” This is our new identity and with the aide of the Holy Spirit, we can live a normal Christlike life. A life that is identified by the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). Read those verses, we live by the Spirit.  This is the consecrated life – a striving for the normal Spirit-filled life, not mirroring the old worldly, sin-filled life. And the striving is not a matter of willing ourselves to be better, if that would work we wouldn’t ever have an identity issue. Consecration is a presenting ourselves, our whole selves, to the Holy Spirit and he does the work of sanctification – making us holy.  And this isn’t a one and done thing. It is a daily, moment by moment thing. The work we can do, the things that are our part of the equation, are what we call Spiritual Disciplines. These acts or works simply put us in the environments where the Holy Spirit can do his work. Disciplines like: prayer (private and corporate), study, Bible reading, community with other believers, silence and solitude, service, fasting and others. These are aspects of the normal Christian life. Let us now, set ourselves apart. Allow the Holy Spirit to continue his work of transformation in our lives and stop living a subnormal existence.

God has more for you than what you are currently experiencing. He has plans for you that will impact the world around you by showing the world a different way, a better way, a different Kingdom and different King. Your life is significant! If you have never identified as a follower of Jesus but are tired of this ‘less than’ life. You can become a new creation by asking Jesus to forgive you and come into your life and then be given this new identity to show in your new life. If you want to more about how to become a follower of Christ, click here! And then start your new life with a new identity!

The signs were all there. Chicken Chalupas? Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos Tacos? Raspberry Freeze? 13 Mild Sauce packets? Mild?…come on, that is so obviously not me! If you know me, you know those aren’t my orders.  How will people know your identity as a believer, a follower of Christ? What are the tell tale signs? What fruit is being produced? What disciplines would be considered normal in your life?

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation”
2 Corinthians 5:17