Satan and Demons: How does Satan attack our identity? by Pastor Mark Driscoll for Real Faith
GNN Note – We republish and produce original material supporting the Biblical principal of Christ identity. Here is another Pastor discussing how the devil / satan / the enemy uses false identities to attack us which ultimately keep us off track and away from God – living in sin (a separated life – separated from God). /END
What you do flows from who you are. As Christians, we live from our identity, not for our identity. We are defined by who we are in Christ, not what we do or fail to do for Christ. Christ defines who we are by who He is and what He’s done for us, in us, and through us. Understanding this information is the key to your transformation. When you know who you are, you know how to live. Only if your identity is rooted in your relationship with God above the ever-changing circumstances of your life can your identity be life-proof and get you through any and every situation.
Satan declares war on our identity because he knows it is perhaps the surest way to wreck the relationship between us and our God. Satan refused to accept his God-given identity and instead sought to form a new identity apart from God. He tempts us to do the same, which is demonic. God created you with an identity, and Satan wants you to instead live out of some counterfeit identity.
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The demonic war on identity started when our first parents, Adam and Eve, encountered the serpent who was “more crafty” than anything else made by God. (1) The serpent started by attacking the very identity of God, “But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’” (2)
As a Christian, you must base your identity upon two things, perhaps the most important things you can learn studying the Bible: (1) who God really is and (2) who God says you really are. It is no surprise that demonic attack starts on those two fronts with Satan giving a counterfeit identity for God and you. If you have a wrong view of God, and/or who you are in relation to God, then everything in your life spins out of control, as it did for Adam and Eve.
Satan wanted them to achieve an identity by rebellion and living apart from God so that, “you will be like God.” Just prior, “God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’…So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (3) God made us in His “likeness” and all we need to do is receive this identity. When Satan tempted our first parents to become “like God” he was lying because they were already made in God’s likeness and all they needed to do was trust that fact by faith.
Satan tried this same trick on Jesus. Luke 4:1–13 says Jesus spent forty days, “being tempted by the devil.” Then, “The devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God’”. Satan was attacking Jesus’ identity as the Son of God. Just prior, at Jesus’ baptism, God the Father said, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” (4)
