Chapter 5: Lizards in the Palace

Whatever you misdiagnose you will mistreat.

— WHAT'S YOUR NAME? —

KATHY and I took two of our grandchildren to Marine World some time ago. Elijah, who was three at the time, and his cousin Mesha, who was five, were in the hotel room with us, sitting on the bed.

They were watching a National Geographic documentary about reptiles on television. When it was over, Mesha looked at Elijah and said, "Let's play crocodiles and lizards!"

Elijah, although he is younger, is much stronger than Mesha. He said, "Yeah!"

Mesha said, "I am the crocodile and you are the lizard."

"Ok," Elijah said excitedly.

Suddenly, they both stood up on the bed and began to wrestle. Within a minute, Elijah had Mesha pinned down on the mattress.

"You can't do that Elijah!" Mesha complained. "You are the lizard. I am the crocodile!"

At her protest, he immediately let her up. "What do lizards do?" he asked.

"They lick things with their tongues like this." She demonstrated by licking his cheek.

"Okay," Elijah said submissively.

A few seconds later, she had convinced him to lie down so she could get on top of him.

"Raaaaw! Raaaaw!" Mesha roared as she struggled to hold him down.

Every time Elijah started to push her off, she would say "Elijah, you are a lizard. I am a crocodile! You can't do that. You can only use your tongue."

Finally, after about ten minutes, a little voice came out from under Mesha, "Papa, I don't want to play anymore."

This story reminds me so much of the game of life. The devil gives us names that disempower us. We become the lizards who can only use our tongues. He becomes the powerful crocodile. Then we spend our lives playing by his rules because we believe in the wrong name.

The devil is the accuser, and he often uses other people to propagate his alias identities over us. My first stepfather used to call me a "stupid ass" all the time. This resulted in me always feeling dumb, which really hindered my ability to learn. The name became a mental block, which manifested as a difficulty with reading. When I finished high school I only read at a third grade level.

I have met many women who were called "whores" by their fathers, then struggled with immorality their entire lives. Names can be prophetic declarations that define a person's identity. Because people act according to who they believe they are, these lies are ultimately acted out in their behavior.

We respond to our environment according to the way we see ourselves. Words spoken to us become names that we carry in our hearts. These names paint a portrait of us in our imagination and become the lenses through which we view our world. Sticks and stones are breaking our bones, but names are taking away our future!

— NAMES ARE PROPHETIC DECLARATIONS —

Just as bad names can hold people in bondage and lead them into destruction, great names can release power into our lives and bring us into our God-given destinies. Many people in the Bible were insignificant until their names were changed. Simon wasn't an apostle until he was named Peter. Saul was not an apostle until his name was changed to Paul.

It is so important that we live by our God-given names and not by names that tie us to bondage. We must break free of all aliases that we have been given by the world. Jacob understood this principle well. In Genesis 32, we find Jacob at a river called "Jabbok," which means "empty and alone." His brother is after him, his wives are always arguing with each other and his father-in-law is mad at him. Like many of us, I'm sure Jacob realized that he was a big part of the problem, but he probably felt powerless to change himself. Jacob was compelled to deceive because, as I mentioned in the last chapter, his name meant "trickster." He was reminded of his shortcomings every time people would call him by his name. We will always act out of who we believe we are: Jacob deceived because his name was deceiver. His behavior eventually created a culture of deception around him, and consequently his wives also became liars and deceivers.

Suddenly, at the lowest part of Jacob's life, he encounters an angel. (You know you're having a tough life when even the angel sent to bless you doesn't like you!) He wrestles with him all night long. The angel mangles him, but Jacob refuses to let the angel go until he blesses him. The angel argues that his shift is over because it is morning and he has to leave. But Jacob persists.

Finally the angel asks him, "What is your name?"

He responds, "My name is Jacob."

The angel continues, "Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed" (Gen. 3:24-29).

Can you imagine fighting with an angel all night long, getting thrashed, and letting him go just because he called you by a nickname? If you wrestled with an angel for one wish, wouldn't you ask him for a new house, a car, or something of monetary significance? Would you let him go just for a name change? You would if you understood the revelation Jacob had. His new name "Israel," meant, "a prince of God." The name released him into his prophetic destiny. It is no accident that after his name was changed, he became the father of one of the greatest nations in the world.

A prophetic declaration is more than mere words, because it releases grace to accomplish what it says. Names in the Bible were given to people as a prophetic declaration of their identity and actually released the very characteristics of their calling to them. Grace as well as disgrace is released by name-calling. Grace is the "operational power of God." Grace is the God-given ability to become what you couldn't become before you received the declaration. Disgrace also has the power to release curses from the dark side.

In the Book of Genesis, God invited Adam to create with Him by naming the animals. When Adam named the animals he was prophesying their DNA and what they were to become in the world, not just calling them a normal animal name like "Fifi" or "Spot!"

The power of a declared name is also illustrated in the third chapter of Genesis. Here Adam named his wife "Eve." Eve means "mother of the living." She was barren until her name was changed from "Woman" to "Eve." After Adam's prophetic declaration, Eve gave birth to Cain and Abel.

Once we realize who we are, our behavior changes because we always act out of our "self-understood" identity. Abram had to have a name change to fulfill his call. God prophesied to Abram that he was going to be the father of many nations. Before he could come into his destiny, his name had to be changed from Abram, which means "exalted father," to Abraham, "the father of a multitude." His name had been limiting his destiny!

When the Lord met me and told me I was a pauper who had become a prince, He was giving me a name change. Once I knew my new name, I had access to the grace I needed to begin walking in a new identity. It is vital that we all hear the name that the Lord has given to us and allow that name to define our identities. When we get to Heaven, we will be given a new name written on a white stone that only we will know. This name will be birthed from a foundation of purity (white stone) and intimacy (no one will know it but you and Jesus). We will need a new identity that is congruent with our new calling (see Rev. 2:17).

— ACTING OUT OF OUR IDENTITY —

It seems to me that our whole society is having a major identity crisis. Most people have no clue who they are or what they are supposed to be doing with their lives. The way we raise our children in America perpetuates the crisis.

When children first learn to talk they ask, "What's that?" a thousand times a day.

Next comes the famous, "Why?"

Kathy and I have seven grandchildren below the age of seven years old. My conversations with my grandchildren go something like this:

"Papa what is that?"

"It is a ball," I answer.

"Why Papa?"

"So we can have fun," I reply.

"Why Papa?"

"So we won't be bored," I tell them.

"Why Papa?"

Finally I send them to Grandma so they can ask her the same questions all over again. When our children hit puberty they start asking another question, "Who am I?" The struggle in our society is that we don't have an answer for that question so we send them off to college to learn how to do something, thinking that if they learn enough it will satisfy their longing for identity. Identity doesn't come from education but from impartation. We can't educate ourselves into our identities. Proper identity comes from the impartation of our heavenly Father speaking to us through the people He has assigned to give oversight to us.

You have to be a human being before you are a human doing. When we try to "do" something without first "being" someone, we usually find ourselves making a living at a job we hate. Another ramification of this failure to discover true identity is that many people learn to derive their self-esteem from what they do. This may seem fine for a while if they can perform well. When they can't perform anymore, for whatever reason, their self-esteem goes into the pit.

This point was driven home to me a while back when I took a long plane trip to the South Pacific. I sat next to a young college student. We had an 11-hour flight together and we seemed to have nothing in common. After a couple of hours I decided to try to get some sleep. When I closed my eyes I had a thought about the young man sitting next to me.

I turned to him and asked, "What do you want to do with your life?"

"I want to be an attorney," he replied.

I found myself saying, "You'll be a lousy attorney!"

He perked up and in an angry voice snapped back, "What do you mean by that?"

I said, "Attorneys have an extremely high value for justice. They need justice so badly that they will violate their relationships to get it. You have a really great value for relationships. You need to be validated, loved and nurtured. Your need for justice is low on your priority list. The first time you get into court and have to attack someone's character to make your case, you're not going to sleep at night."

"That is exactly right!" he said.

"You know what you need to do?"

"No, what?" He replied.

"You have amazing gift mix. You have a very creative side that expresses itself in something like acting. You also have an extremely left-brained side that likes to organize things and administrate them. I see your bedroom being really organized and the clothes in your closet hanging in the order of color. You would be a great movie director if you would give yourself to that."

He almost jumped out of his seat. He said excitedly, "I do organize my room and my clothes just like you described. I have always wanted to be a director and I was the head of my drama class in high school!"

"That's what you need to do with your life," I told him. "You are the next Steven Spielberg!"

Many of us spend our lives doing something that is different from who we are. When our activities are an expression of our person, it is amazing how much we enjoy what we do.

— TRANSFORMED FROM SINNERS TO SAINTS —

Now that we understand that names aren't just a matter of semantics, let's take a closer look at how names affect us. Before we received Christ we were called "sinners." We were professionals; our name was a job description. We were prone to sin. When we received Christ we became "saints." Paul makes this clear in his letters to the believers because he called them saints. Here are a few examples: "To all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints" (Rom. 1:7a); "To the church of God, which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling" (1 Cor. 1:2a); "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 1:1). The word saint means, "holy believer." You can't be a sinner and a saint

at the same time. How is it possible to be prone to sin and still be a holy believer?

The word "sinner" implies that we are prone to do wrong. If we believe that we are sinners, we will sin by faith! Remember what we learned earlier, "For as [a man] thinks within himself, so he is" (Prov. 23:7). Like Jacob, trapped in deception by his name, if we still believe we are sinners, we will be unable to access the grace to live as a saint and will still try to perform good works in order to merit forgiveness. It is not our nature to sin anymore. First John 3:7-9 says,

Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.

We are Christians; it is not our nature to do wrong. Our very nature has been changed. Now we are actually saints; righteousness is part of our new nature and it is natural for us to glorify God. Our old man is buried. We need to stop visiting our tombs and talking to our dead, old man. (In the Old Testament, people were judged and killed for talking to the dead—a practice called necromancy.) We are a new creation. It's below our nature to act like that now—we are now princes and princesses of the King!

The power of the cross not only dealt with the forgiveness of our sins but it also changed our very nature. Some people have isolated the effects of the born-again experience to the spirit. That's not accurate. Salvation changed our entire being! Peter says that we are "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet. 1:4). Think of it, your very nature is now divine! Paul said that we our "new creatures" in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). He didn't say we are new spirits, He said "new creatures!" If we believe that we are still sinners, we dilute the power of the blood and then, like Jacob, spend our days trying to be good.

— A NEW HEART AND A NEW MIND —

The truth of the matter is that we are good because we have received a new heart and a new mind (see Ezek. 36:26; 1 Cor. 2:16). That's right—we received a brain transplant! We actually think like God! I have heard these verses misquoted so many times:

"THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND WHICH HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM." For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For "WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM?" But we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:9-16).

Did you notice that some of the text quoted above is an Old Testament verse? Paul is not saying that we don't know what God has prepared for us; he is saying that they (the Old Testament believers) didn't know what God had prepared for them because they were not "new creatures." But we have the mind of Christ because we are born of His Spirit. We think like God.

We still have a free will, and we can still choose to sin. However, as saints it doesn't come easily anymore. There is a river of God that runs through our souls and carries us towards the throne. If we don't paddle we will end up at God's house. We are prone to righteousness. That is why Paul said, "It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me" (Gal. 2:20).

— TRYING TO DO THE RIGHT THING BUT —

Many people have misunderstood the seventh chapter of Romans. In this chapter Paul talks about his struggle with trying to do good and still doing the wrong thing. If we read these verses in light of the preceding and proceeding Scriptures, we find that it is impossible for Paul to have been speaking about his redeemed life. The entire Book of Romans is a letter of contrast between the life lived under the Law and the life that is in Christ.

In the sixth chapter of Romans Paul teaches us that when we were baptized, we died with Christ and when we came out of the water we were raised with Him in the likeness of His resurrection. Baptism is not a symbolic act but it is a prophetic act. Prophetic acts, like prophetic declarations, release God's power to bring about change in our lives. In the case of baptism, being submerged under water is the act of dying with Christ but being pulled up out of the water is equally as important as it brings power to live in Christ! This is how it reads:

Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:4-11).

He exhorts us to therefore consider ourselves (that is, think about it this way) dead to sin and alive to Christ. We entered the baptismal tank with a cross and we exited with a crown! Sinning is incongruent with our new nature.

The seventh chapter begins with an analogy of a woman married to a man. Here is what Paul says:

Do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives? For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man. Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God (Romans 7:1-4).

Paul is giving us a description of our lives before and after Jesus. We were married to the law. The Law told us about all the things that we were doing wrong but the Law had no power to change us. When Christ died the Law was fulfilled, freeing us to marry another husband. If we have identified with Him in His death, we have entered a new covenant and are engaged to Jesus Himself. Paul goes on to make a strong connection with those who struggle under the law by describing the battle he faced when he was married to the law in the present tense. But Paul declares victory in the war of his and our souls in the eighth chapter of Romans with this final blow. He says, "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death" (Rom. 8:1-2).

— FAITH IS THE CATALYST OF THE SPIRIT REALM —

The righteousness of God comes into our lives by faith. In order for us to believe in something we have to know that there is something to believe in. The entire spirit world operates by faith, not just God's world. For instance, fear is the manifestation that we have faith in the wrong kingdom. When we believe something is going to go wrong, we have given our faith to the enemy. By doing this we have just empowered the one that Jesus disarmed at the cross. When we believe in God, we empower the Holy Spirit and the angels to bring about His will.

If we've been taught that after receiving Christ we are still sinners, we will struggle with trying to do the right thing because we have put our faith in our ability to fail instead of His work on the cross! We can spend the rest of our lives living under the curse of our old name "sinner," or like Israel, we can receive our new name that has the power to alter our very DNA. We are Saints, holy believers, and Christians, which means we are "little Christs"! When the Father looks at us, He sees the image of the Son He loves.