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Performance (3 of 4)

Mike Connell

Page 4 of 10
Do you realise that the way you get saved is to recognise the true identity of Jesus, what He did, who He is and what He's done? The moment you acknowledge that in your heart and speak it with your mouth, you're saved. Isn't that amazing? So each time Jesus come under a spiritual attack, this is one of the things. In Matthew 12:38-39 the scribes and Pharisees come up and said well if You're who You say You are, prove it. Do a miracle. Now what they're sort of saying is if you do a miracle I'll believe You're true. I'll believe You're the Son of God. Actually if he did a miracle - He did miracles. He raised Lazarus from the dead. You know what they wanted to do? Kill Lazarus, because this is a problem Lazarus living. He was dead before and he's alive now - we don't want to know how this happened. Let's just get rid of the fellow, because if we acknowledge it we'll have to acknowledge who Jesus is.

So miracles will not necessarily establish the identity of God, who He is and what He does. People just won't believe. If unbelief is in their heart they won't believe, so it's revelation. That's why Jesus said no one can come to the Father but by Me, and no one comes unless the Spirit reveals. Now you need to know who you are. You need God to reveal to you who you are as well. You need to know who you are, and I'll share that in the next message. I'll go clearly to what the Bible says about it, see? So look at this in the end of Jesus' ministry, Mark 15:29 and 32. They said hey, if You're the Son of God! Come down from the cross, prove it! So You're the Son of God, so You're the king. Prove it! Do something spectacular. So you notice even when unbelievers look - well you're a Christian, why don't you do this? Well I am a Christian and I do lots of things; I'm not choosing to do that for the moment.

You understand, people want to attach your identity to what you do, or they want you to prove who you are by what you do. Many believers, many Christians unfortunately are locked into what I call performance orientation and they define themselves according to what they're doing or have done. Now we all are subject to that. We all have that dilemma in our life until we become established clearly, this is who I am and I am happy with who I am, and I am growing in who I am and I'm actually able to be free to be that person. It brings tremendous liberty, so many people for example, they'd have something like this going on in their life; I'm a success. How do you know you're a success? Well look at all the things I've done, I must be. Well did God ask you to do all those things? Were you designed to do those things? Is that what the call of God was for you to do all those things? Is that how you're successful?

A person gets to the end of their life and they're about to die and go to heaven, they really have a reality check immediately on what was of value and what isn't. They never define their life [according to 00.17.13] what they did. It's always the relationships that they have and who they've expressed themselves to be, see? So you know, even God says - He says well I see you've done all these things, but did you love people? Is love in your heart? Are you a loving person? Who are you? Are you a loving person? Are you a generous person? What kind of person are you anyway? Well I look at my past and I see what I've done, I think I'm pretty miserable really - so we cannot define ourselves according to what we do, otherwise we'll come up with things I'm a success because I did this, this and this. I went to university, [sniffs] you didn't. But you see understand that when you define your identity around your performance, then you divide your world up into those who've performed less than you and you're better than them.

Then unfortunately you'll meet up with people who perform better than you and now you'll feel less than them, so you don't hang around them. They make you insecure because they challenge your identity. They show you up. You actually didn't do so much after all, and if your identity is attached to what you do the moment you meet someone who's accomplished a lot more you become insecure, because the comparison you were using before was someone who hadn't done so much; well look what I've done. I've got all this money together - look at you! And then you meet a billionaire; oh whoa! You understand, if our identity is attached to what we've accomplished, then we're insecure the moment those accomplishments fail or we meet someone else who's accomplished more, because our identity is attached to the wrong thing. So the moment you fail you've got issues about not the failure but who you are.