Dear Woodland Hills Family,
When my boys were young I noticed they copied a lot of the things I did. If my hand was on my hip, so was theirs. If I was using a power drill, they’d use their toy power drill. When I’d crawl under my truck to work on it, they’d want to, too. They wanted to identify with me in as many ways as possible.
Identification. It’s that fundamental part of who we are as humans that makes us want to be like or become like another. We do it consciously as well as unconsciously. It seems God has hard-wired us to want to identify with people we hold in high regard.
The Scriptures detail many aspects of the believer’s identification with Christ. Here are a few: we are baptized into Christ and His death (Romans 6:3), buried with Christ through baptism (Romans 6:4), crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20), united with Christ in the likeness of His death and resurrection (Romans 6:5), seated with Christ in heaven (Ephesians 2:6), and joint-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17).
Oh, and one more important one! We are weak with Christ. “Indeed He was crucified because of weakness…[and] we also are weak in Him” (2 Corinthians 13:4).
Which leads us to weakness principle #7:
Weakness affords us the privilege of identifying with Christ.
Weakness affords us the privilege of identifying with Christ.
One of the reasons God allows us to encounter weakness is to identify with our Savior. It becomes an occasion by which we may honor Him for His weakness and humiliation. “For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake” (Philippians 1:29).
Amy Carmichael, herself a sufferer of weakness, wrote of honoring the Lord by identifying with Him in weakness:
Hast thou no scar?
No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand?
I hear thee sung as mighty in the land;
I hear them hail thy bright, ascendant star.
Hast thou no scar?
Hast thou no wound?
Yet I was wounded by the archers; spent,
Leaned Me against a tree to die; and rent
By rav’ning beasts that compassed Me, I swooned.
Hast thou no wound?
No wound? No scar?
Yet, as the Master shall the servant be,
And piercèd are the feet that follow Me.
But thine are whole; can he have followed far
Who hast no wound or scar?
Are you beset with weakness? Choosing to view your weakness as an opportunity to identify with the Lord in His… will honor Him greatly.
Grace to that end, friends,
