Who Are You?

If someone were to ask you this what would you say? Most likely you would respond by telling them your name. But what if .the person questioning you persisted and said that they were not asking for your name, chances are you would be forced to think a little harder before answering them again. In Matthew 16:13, Jesus asked his disciples “who do men say that I am?” They told him what many people were saying about him. Then he asked them, “Whom do you say I am?” Even though they answered these questions with names and titles, they were actually saying a lot more.

In our culture, a person's name is usually nothing more than arbitrarily chosen title assigned at birth so we can reference one another and avoid confusion in crowds. In the Jewish culture however, a person's name always expressed something about the person it belongs to. The name Jesus, for example, means “The Salvation of Yahweh.” This is why it so significant when peoples names were changed. (see: Genesis 18:5,35:10, Mark 3:16-17) For a person to have their name changed represented a complete change of who they were and what their life purpose was.

Look now at a story in Acts 19:13-15. Some men were trying to cast a demon out of a man. They told the demon to get out of the man in the name of the Jesus whom Paul preached. The demon answered the men and said, “I know Jesus, and I’ve heard about Paul, but who are you?” Then the demon overpowered the men, tore their clothes off them and chased them off. A similar story is recorded in Matthew 17:15-20. A man brought his demon-possessed son to Jesus' disciples and they tried to cast the demon out but were unsuccessful.

Even though there are differences between these stories they are also very similar in one notable respect. The similarity between these stories is that in both cases those who were attempting to enforce the authority of God's kingdom were unsuccessful because they didn’t know who they were.

In the case of the disciples, Jesus had clearly authorised them as His representatives, and given them “power and authority over all the demons to cast them out.” (Matthew 10:1 and Luke 9:1) But when the power and authority Jesus gave them was challenged by darkness, their faith in that power and authority was shaken, with the result that they were unable to drive the demon out. (Matthew 17:21)

This story holds a very powerful secret for all of us as well – that it is not enough that God has said something about us, but we must believe it about ourselves. There are many things that God’s word declares to be true of us not because of anything we have done, but because of what God did for us through Jesus. For example, in Ephesians 2:6 Paul said that God has “raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

But is this who you know yourself to be? If challenged by darkness, will you maintain that you are everything that God’s Word says you are? Don't wait until you're challenged to find out! Dwell on what The Word of God says you are now - until you believe it!