This article written by Wes Wilmer, recently appeared in the 
Christian Leadership Alliance. 
Wes Willmer is the founder of Wes Willmer Group, LLC. 
 You may contact him at Wes.Willmer@aol.com.

"As followers of Christ we are to be in this world but not of this world. If we are just passing through, should our identity be with Christ, or this world.  Our identity is formed by the union of our soul with God—or in the apostles phrase “it is Christ formed within us.” In our culture today as we hear about identity theft, probably the most common question about our identity is to answer the question what do you do? When we are in a meeting or meeting someone new, the common routine is to give a name and title of the organization where you work. As believers, is this our true identity?

The common practice with television games shows like Family Feud, Wheel of Fortune etc. is to identify contestants by stating  their name and answer the question, what do you do? Most are common replies such as police officer, school teacher, dentist, writer, clerk, truck driver etc. Not long ago, when the Family Feud host was going down the line asking participants what do you do, a middle-aged woman replied, “I am a discipler of Christians.” The host Steve Harvey (who usually has a quick reply) stared at her almost stunned at the statement not knowing how to respond.

This started me thinking what would I say other than my occupation. How about you? Have you considered how to identify who you are in Christ rather than of this world?  Is our job titles, our degrees or certificates or awards or boards we serve on or publications we write that  forms our identity or should it be our steward role with Christ?"

The hymn words of Keith Getty and Stuart Townsend In Christ Alone sets a good example:

Recently my mother-in-law went to her heavenly home and I was reminded of how God prepares a special place just for us in heaven (John 14:2-3). CS Lewis writes: “Your place in  heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, because you were made for it—made for it stitch by stich as a glove is made for a hand.”  I can’t help but believe how we identify ourselves here on earth will make a different in our heavenly home. George Whitfield suggested we “live a life of faith on earth, live a life of vision in heaven.”

What is your identity?

Rivers Not Reservoirs
7982 Hillcrest Trail
Jonesboro, Georgia 30236
404.784.4618

Blog:    www.hisrivers.org
Email:  his.rivers@gmail.com

My wife recently forwarded the following article/post by Donald Miller to me. 
It is such a good follow-up to my last post -  'Oh to be like Thee' - 
that I have included it in this week's post.  

The line that caught my attention? 

When Bill Bright was asked the question- "What does Jesus mean to you?"  
He sat there in his big chair behind his big desk and wept.

          Loving Jesus
            By Donald Miller

A guy I know named Alan went around the country asking ministry leaders questions. He went to successful churches and asked the pastors what they were doing, why what they were doing was working. It sounded very boring except for one visit he made to a man named Bill Bright, the president of a big ministry. Alan said he was a big man, full of life, who listened without shifting his eyes. Alan asked a few questions. I don’t know what they were, but as a final question he asked Dr. Bright what Jesus meant to him. Alan said Dr. Bright could not answer the question. He said Dr. Bright just started to cry. He sat there in his big chair behind his big desk and wept.

When Alan told that story I wondered what it was like to love Jesus that way. I wondered, quite honestly, if that Bill Bright guy was just nuts or if he really knew Jesus in a personal way, so well that he would cry at the very mention of His name. I knew then that I would like to know Jesus like that, with my heart, not just my head. I felt like that would be the key to something.

I remember the first time I had feelings for Jesus. It wasn’t very long ago. I had gone to a conference on the coast with some Reed students, and a man spoke who was a professor at a local Bible college. He spoke mostly about the Bible, about how we should read the Bible. He was convincing. He seemed to have an emotional relationship with the Book, the way I think about Catcher in the Rye. This man who was speaking reads through the Bible three times each year. I had never read through the Bible at all. I had read a lot of it but not all of it, and mostly I read it because I felt that I had to; it was healthy or something.

The speaker guy asked us to go outside and find a quiet place and get reacquainted with the Book, hold it in our hands and let our eyes feel down the pages. I went out on the steps outside the rest room and opened my Bible to the book of James.

Years ago I had a crush on a girl, and I prayed about it and that night read through James, and because it is a book about faith and belief I felt like God was saying that if I had faith she would marry me. So I was very excited about this and lost a lot of weight, but the girl gave her virginity to a jerk from our youth group, and they are married now. I didn’t care, honestly. I didn’t love her that much. I only say that because the book of James, in my Bible, is highlighted in ten colors and underlined all over the place, and it looks blood raw, and the yellow pages remind me of a day when I believed so faithfully in God, so beautifully in God. I read a little, maybe a few pages, then shut the Book, very tired and confused.

But when we got back from the conference, I felt like my Bible was calling me. I felt this promise that if I read it, if I just read it like a book, cover to cover, it wouldn’t change me into an idiot, it wouldn’t change me into a clone of Pat Buchanan, and that was honestly the thing I was worried about with the Bible. If I read it, it would make me simple in my thinking. So I started in Matthew, which is one of the Gospels about Jesus. And I read through Matthew and Mark, then Luke and John. I read those books in a week or so, and Jesus was very confusing, and I didn’t know if I liked Him very much, and I was certainly tired of Him by the second day. By the time I got to the end of Luke, to the part where they were going to kill Him again, where they were going to stretch Him out on a cross, something shifted within me. I remember it was cold outside, crisp, and the leaves in the trees of the park across the street were getting tired and dry. And I remember sitting at my desk, and I don’t know what it was that I read or what Jesus was doing in the book, but I felt a love for Him rush through me, through my back and into my chest. I started crying, too, like that guy Bill Bright.

I remember thinking that I would follow Jesus anywhere, that it didn’t matter what He asked me to do. He could be mean to me; it didn’t matter, I loved Him, and I was going to follow Him.

This article is an excerpt from Donald Miller's book Blue Like Jazz.  
Click the link below to check it out.

Blue like Jazz

RIVERS NOT RESERVOIRS
7982 Hillcrest Trail
Jonesboro, Georgia 30236
404.784.4618

Email:   his.rivers@gmail.com
Blog:     www.hisrivers.org 

I am in 'that season of life' where somedays I look in the mirror
or I will do something, and I think,  
"Oh no, I've become my father".  

And of course there are the moments
now more frequent than ever
when my wife will say:
"You are so like your Father"

Now don't get me wrong. I loved my father
who is now with the Lord- 
But there did come that day,
when I also thought:
"I will never be 'that way'. 

or maybe more often:
 "I will never look that old'.

Well guess what Mark - that day has come

Then, sitting in church this past Sunday, the Lord said to me:
"Are you becoming like Me - your heavenly Father?"

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be 
has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears,
 we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 
John 3:2-3

My mind went to things like - When I see Him, will I recognize Him because I am like Him? Will He recognize me because I am like Him? Am I becoming like my Father in heaven? Do others recognize that I am becoming like Him?

What would happen if EACH DAY:

• My face (countenance) was His?
  
• My work was done as He would work?
• My communication with others was as He would communicate?
• My expressions showed love for others

What would happen if EACH DAY I asked Him:

• Where are we going today?
• What will we do today?
• What will we say today?
• Will I look like you today?

Will I hear others say: "You are becoming just like you Father"?  Oh, I pray so!

RIVERS NOT RESERVOIRS
7982 Hillcrest Trail
Jonesboro, Georgia 30236
404.784.4618

BLOG:   www.hisrivers.org 
EMAIL: his.rivers@gmail.com

The fly is out on one of his daily sortie’s when he spots the ‘fly-paper’.  
“Got to have it.. that is mine”, he says to himself. And in he swoops … 
but you know what happens next, don’t you?

The fly-paper has the final word… 

“You little fly are mine”.
 What the fly thought he would possess, 
actually possesses him.

Are you aware of how many things in your life that you thought you possessed, are actually possessing you?  It is lke the fly and the fly-paper, what we thought we would or did possess, actually possess us.

We live in a culture and a day, when our worth is often viewed by how much we possess. We are constantly working to grow our possessions. ‘I’ve got to have it’; ‘That will make me important, worthwhile, feel safe, feel secure, feel in control. And we soon get caught up in a subconscious drive to possess more.

Our spiritual life is not immune from this either. Not everything in our lives is driven by the need to posses more material possessions. However, I wonder if there aren't areas of my life where the desire to possess still is alive and well?

How many times have I thought - ‘If I only had more of Christ’. 

How often have I prayed, "Lord, I need more of you'?  
How often have I thought that I have Christ as one of my possessions?
How often have I thought that becoming a Christian ‘adds to my life’. 
How many times have I quoted:   Phil 4:13   “I can do all things through Christ- (but subconsciously really mean)  'I can do all things with Christ on my side'?  

I wonder if I view Christ 'in my life' as my most valuable possession - but still a possession. 

Don’t get me wrong  - I get it - Yet, I am coming to believe that I have it backwards. 

The old preacher said it perfectly: 
"Either Christ is Lord of all, or He is not Lord at all." 

 It is pretty simple - but not easy.'   I must die to self.

It is only when I die to self, that it is possible for Christ to fully possess me.  
Until then, Christ is my possession and I will use Him as I desire,
in much the same way I use all of the other ‘possessions’ of my life. 

I recently read this statement:

When the self-life expires, 
Christ will possess ME fully for Himself 
as naturally as air rushes into a vacuum.

My prayer today

'Lord, will you so completely indwell (possess) every part 
of my life, that your life will be completely reproduced in me.'

And that my friends is what I believe is the key to becoming a River and not a Reservoir

And as John Maxwell would say: Just a thought.

RIVERS NOT RESERVOIRS
7982 Hillcrest Trail
Jonesboro, Georgia 30236
404.784.4618

BLOG:     www.hisrivers.org
EMAIL:   his.rivers@gmail.com