John 17:14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.
We often hear in spy movies about people getting new identities. They must go undercover and need a backstory to sell the new identity. Of course they need all the paperwork and digital footprints to go with the new identity in order to make it believable.
We have also heard about the “witness protection program” where people who are willing to testify against some very bad people are protected before the trial, and then given completely new identities, including new lives, new homes, and new communities. They give up everything and their everything gets replaced with something different.
The common thread in these two scenarios is that the government is changing the identities. They are doing the work. They have teams of people behind the scenes making all the changes and arrangements. The individuals involved must just assume the new identity and stick to the story no matter what.
There is something that changes our identity, the Word of God. This is what Jesus mentions as the thing that has changed their status, their identity in the world. Jesus gave them God’s word and then their status moved from ‘liked’ to ‘hated’ in connection to other people.
When people believed God’s Word, something inside them changed that then showed up on the outside. The Word did the work. All the disciples had to do was believe in Jesus, and then they stepped into a new identity.
And along with that new identity, there were benefits gained that came along with the new identity. Their citizenship changed from ‘citizen of the world’ to ‘citizen of heaven.’ And it took place in an instant. Just as Jesus was not a citizen of this world, so they joined Him in becoming a citizen of heaven.
But that is not all that changed in that moment. Responsibilities of the new citizenship also came into effect. They now entered a process of sanctification, of being made progressively more and more like Jesus in holiness and dedication to the cause. They couldn’t stay the same over time. They had to change.
And it is the Word that changes them. Thus the importance of continual washing of the Word in our lives. We NEED the Word to change us daily, moment by moment. We live in a world saturated with evil. We need the Word to replace the saturated soil of our hearts, a soil saturated on a daily basis with a barrage of anti-christ propaganda.
We must assume the new identity and embrace it. There can be no going back, no contact with the former life, no forays into the old circle of friends. Contact threatens the new identity and our safety.
Jesus is praying for His disciples right before His arrest, death and resurrection. He is preparing their hearts and minds for what is ahead. And part of the preparation is that they would be protected from the evil that is present in this world.
And that evil is still present in this world, and we still need protection from it. But we also need the Word of God just as much now as when Jesus was walking with His disciples, perhaps even more so. We need the junk inside us replaced with the character of God.
The Arnold Journey 