Our identity is who we really are. In reality, our identity comes from God, and we are who He has made us to be and who He says we are. We are made in His image and are His highest creation.

This is not a popular message. It’s not an easy message. This is the kind of message that would make some people mad! Some may not think this is for them, because they have so much pride!

So far in this series, we have seen that Jesus sets us free through His finished

work on the cross as we trust Him. Today we are going to see that in order to experience and live in the freedom that Jesus purchased for us that we must know and do the truth.

Did you know that religion is a bondage? It is because it promises salvation but cannot deliver. I define religion as our attempts to earn favor with God by our own efforts and/ or goodness instead of through Jesus and His finished work on the cross.

In order to have a relationship with God, we have to stop trusting in our own efforts to keep the law and/or doing things to make ourselves right with God, and trust Jesus alone for our salvation (Romans 10:4-13).

We are looking at a story from the Old Testament, but it is a picture of the cross and the freedom that we have through what Jesus did on the cross so we are going to make the New Testament applications of the story.

Romans 15:4 says, “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.”

I believe that in every situation, including trials, God is working for our good and His glory and Satan is working to destroy us. God tests us in order to build us up while Satan tempts us in order to eat us up.

Every marriage will be a trial at times. We don’t realize it before we get married, but this is inevitable.

Perspective is very powerful. In fact, how well we make it through trials is partially determined by how we view those trials.