The world wants us to identify with some person, institution, sports team, etc. steering us away from identifying with Christ. When I was young, I was a Dallas Cowboys football fan and wanted to emulate various players who were successful. I even had a team jersey with one of the players’ number on the back. I wanted to be like the player and hoped to achieve success in similar fashion. But now my priorities have changed, I purpose to identify with Our Lord Jesus Christ, our Elder Brother. As I align myself with Him and in Him, I take on His nature and characteristics. Identifying with Christ is far superior than another person, institution, or team.
Paul wrote by THE SPIRIT in Ephesians chapter 2:
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
The world attempts to put peer pressure on us to identify with someone or something other than Our Lord Jesus Christ yet they cannot offer eternal life nor the fruitfulness of THE SPIRIT. Their alternatives are always temporary by nature. The world cannot offer life but only offers a perception which promotes and exalts “self”. “Self” wants to project success by identifying with someone else who has achieved success as though their success will somehow transfer to us and change us into some superstar. Paul wrote in Romans chapter 6:
5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,
6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.
7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,
9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him.
10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Let us direct our focus to fully aligning ourselves with Jesus Christ in His current state of being alive and living unto GOD. Let not the old man redirect our attention to past worldly identifications but let keep our hearts from being misled. When we consider the goal of our maturing process as Sons and Daughters, it is not to become some worldly superstar, we are to be counted among those who have fully taken on Christ and all His attributes. Let us exalt Jesus Christ in both word and deed. We will then walk in the fullness of Agape Love. The Beloved Disciple wrote by THE SPIRIT in 1 John chapter 4:
17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.
When we fully identify with Christ, Love is perfected in us and “As He is, so are we”.