Our Identity Found in ONE, the LORD GOD
When the landscape of life changes, what is your normal course of action?
- Do you embrace God’s promises and trust Him?
- Do you follow God’s leading, accepting the change as you continue to become the person He created you to be?
- Do you walk in what the Lord is calling you to do?
In one psalm of David, he wrote these words of the Lord, words that are still applicable today.
“I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go;
(The Psalms 32: 8 NASB)
I will counsel you with My eye upon you.”
- God helps His children, and you must remember how you are only one prayer away from His glorious strength and guidance. You can prayerfully ask God for wisdom to seek what He is asking of you right now, where you are, AND you can step forward.
- God leads those who have believed on Jesus through faith, giving them His grace. In his leading, you can move forward. The Lord does not leave you to wander alone when seasons of change come upon you. No, God does not, but instead He provides wisdom when you do not know what to do or where to go.
- God gifts you with His Holy Spirit, His assurance to dwell within you, to remind you that you are never on your own.
To help show God’s leadership of His people, see in the Old Testament a time of confusion and a change instituted by the LORD. This confusion came because of the disobedience of the people.
“Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words.”
(The Genesis 11:1 NASB)
I can tell you that this singular language would be helpful in the place where I teach. Instead, the university receives as a blessing over three hundred international students, many who speak different heart languages. As an example, just this week, the university welcomed a group of Portuguese-speaking students, with only one professor on campus able to fully communicate with the group of students. There is a vast array of heart languages present any given day on campus, and one only needs to step into the dining hall and listen to the cacophony of language to see this truth.
As the world of people move about, change occurs, whether good or not so good.
“It came about as they journeyed east,
(The Genesis 11:2-4 NASB)
that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.”
And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.
They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city,
and a tower whose top will reach into heaven,
and let us make for ourselves a name,
otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
Did you see the fear? The mistrust? The self-focus? The problematic action taken?
- It was not the tower that was the problem, but it was what the tower presented.
- It was not the people gathering to build the tower that caused God’s anger, but it was that they had gathered to serve self—MORE THAN ALMIGHTY GOD.
- It was not the singularity of people’s heart language that caused confusion; it was that the people feared being scattered.
Rather than trusting God, the people tried to secure their own future, their own identity, and their own greatness—AND THIS ACTION ANGERED THE LORD.
“The LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.
(The Genesis 11:5-9 NASB)
The LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language.
And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.
Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language,
so that they will not understand one another’s speech.
So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth;
and they stopped building the city.
Therefore its name was called Babel [balal, which means to confuse],
because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth;
and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
Did you see the Us: The Father, the Son of God, and the Spirit of God came down to earth? and did you notice how the LORD sees us, each one of us and collectively, all of us?
- The LORD came down to see the PURPOSE behind the peoples’ actions.
- The LORD confused the people’s language from one language to MANY.
- The LORD scattered the people across the face of the earth.
- The LORD stopped the building of the tower and caused the people to scatter into multiple language destinations.
See how the people’s mistrust, self-focus, and problematic action. Let us be people who do not seek to anger the LORD, but rather:
- Let us trust God in everything.
- Let us trust Him to secure our future, which only He can see.
- Let our identity and our greatness—BE FOUND IN THE LORD.