The Reading Plan is designed to guide you through daily scriptures and reflections, helping you deepen your understanding and strengthen your faith. Simply follow the daily readings provided, meditate on the scripture, and reflect on how it applies to your life. You can revisit previous days or jump ahead to future readings at your own pace. Stay consistent, and watch your spiritual growth unfold as you engage with the Word daily.
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- How to Avoid Identify Theft
5Day Reading Plan
How to Avoid Identify Theft
- Identity
Creflo Dollar
The devil has always been a thief. As believers, we must be on the alert for his attacks; one of the first things he tries to steal that God gave us is who we are in Christ. Being born again gives us new life and makes us new creations just like Christ in our spirits. Regardless of what the enemy says to us, we have been united with Jesus Christ and are now one with Him. Confidence in our true identity keeps it from being stolen from us.
How to Use the Reading Plan:
About the Author:
Creflo Dollar serves as the Senior Pastor of World Changers Church International in College Park, Georgia. He has authored transformative books like Radical Life of Grace and Why I Hate Religion. His award-winning television broadcast, Changing Your World, reaches nearly 1 billion homes globally.
Day 1Avoiding Identity Theft
The devil has always been a thief. As believers, we must be on the alert for his attacks; one of the first things he tries to steal is the identity that God gave us: who we are in Christ. He did this with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, and unsuccessfully tried it again with Jesus in the wilderness. He’s still up to his old tricks and tries them with us, but he’s no match for someone who knows their true identity.
Knowing who to listen to is the key to protecting our identity. Satan told Adam and Eve that eating the fruit from the tree would make them like God. They were fooled because they didn’t know that they were already like God. The devil lied and said they wouldn’t die if they ate of the fruit, but they died spiritually because they were separated from the Father.
The devil tells us that we’re sinners, God can’t forgive us of our sins, and that His promises don’t apply to us; however, he’s already been identified as the father of lies. By contrast, Jesus, who is the truth, is incapable of lying. We therefore can confidently trust in His Word concerning everything He says about us.
We learn who we really are only through Christ; faith in Him makes us God’s children. When the enemy suggests that we can lose our salvation through bad behavior, God’s Word assures us that it’s permanent and we’ve been forgiven. God had compassion on us and chose to trample our sins under His feet and throw them into the depths of the ocean.
The Mighty One has saved us. He quiets us with His love and rejoices over us with singing. Faith in this settles any question about who we are.
Scriptures:
Genesis 3:1-5
Matthew 4:1-11
John 8:44
John 14:6
Numbers 23:19
Titus 1:2, NKJV
John 1:12
Galatians 4:6
John 10:28, 29
Romans 8:38, 39
Ephesians 1:13, 14, NKJV
Micah 7:19, NLT
Zephaniah 3:17, NKJV
For more on guarding your identity, check out Creflo Dollar’s 2-message series, How to Avoid Identity Theft.
Day 2Who We Really Are
Imagine the panicky feeling that would come over you if your identity was stolen. Our identities are important to us, and we closely guard against theft of our personal, sensitive information. However, there’s another thief prowling around on the spiritual level trying to steal something even more valuable. Satan, the father of lies who deceived Adam and Eve about who they really were, is now trying to steal our identity in Christ.
The devil has always been focused on theft, and he wants to take everything he can from us. The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy—specifically, to destroy the confidence we have about who we are as God’s children. When he met Jesus in the wilderness, he questioned His identity as the Son of God; he tries it with us, as well.
We avoid identity theft by knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt who we are, and whose we are. As many as receive Christ and believe in His name, to those He gives the right to become children of God. No one can take away this right. We belong to Jesus, and no one can pluck us out of His hand.
The Holy Spirit, who only speaks what He hears from the Father, reminds us of who we are. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirits that we’re God’s children. This is an immutable truth that can’t change, even in the face of the devil’s contradictions. God isn’t a man that He should lie.
The enemy accuses us of our past mistakes, hoping we don’t realize that we’re new creations in Christ. The old has passed away and the new has come. When Satan tries to put us in bondage, knowing this truth makes us free.
Scriptures:
John 8:44, NLT
John 10:10, 28
Matthew 4:6
John 1:12, NKJV
John 16:13, TPT
Romans 8:16, NKJV
Numbers 23:19
2 Corinthians 5:17
John 8:32
For more on guarding your identity, check out Creflo Dollar’s 2-message series, How to Avoid Identity Theft.
Day 3The Gift from God That Made Us Righteous
As flawed human beings, sometimes we give ourselves too much credit. We’re indeed God’s children, and He sees us as righteous and holy because of our stance in Christ. However, we didn’t achieve this standing through our own efforts. Our righteousness is a gift from Jesus, and we must never forget that we receive it by faith.
Our righteousness doesn’t come from ourselves, but from Christ, who rescued mankind from sin. God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that we could be the righteousness of God in Christ. This gift is permanent and can never be revoked when we fall, because it’s based not on what we do, but on what Jesus already did.
We’ve been forgiven and delivered from self-effort. Blessed is the person to whom God imputes righteousness without works, and to whom He won’t impute sin. Under the Mosaic Law, righteousness had to be earned, but that has ended. The righteousness of God is by the faith of Jesus Christ—not by our faith—to all who believe.
We’ve departed from the Old-Testament definition of what it means to be righteous. Before the cross, it meant being obedient to hundreds of rules and regulations; faith didn’t figure into the equation. After the cross, it means believing in Jesus and in His finished works. Our justification by faith gives us peace with God through Christ.
Before Jesus’ death and resurrection, salvation required work. When Jesus met the rich young ruler, He told him to follow all the commandments in order to be saved. Afterward, the only requirement was to believe.
Every good and perfect gift is from above, including the gift of righteousness. Faith that God made us righteous helps us to stop struggling with this concept. There’s nothing more magnificent.
Scriptures:
2 Corinthians 5:21
Romans 4:6-8
Romans 3:22
Romans 5:1
Matthew 19:16-21
Mark 10:17-21
Acts 16:30, 31
James 1:17
For more on guarding your identity, check out Creflo Dollar’s 2-message series, How to Avoid Identity Theft.
Day 4Believe That Your Righteousness Is Finished
Human nature being what it is, we can make the mistake of overestimating or underestimating ourselves and our own capabilities. This is understandable. Since our faith in Christ has made us permanently righteous in God’s sight, sometimes we can think too much of ourselves or question whether this righteousness is permanent. Religion confuses us on this point by insisting that our salvation depends on our own performance and ability to do right. However, our righteousness is a gift that can never be taken away.
Our salvation doesn’t depend on our own perfection; it does depend on accepting Christ and what He did for us on the cross. He was offered once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. Our righteousness is a finished work; we therefore don’t have to be afraid that God’s going to “get” us when He returns. He’ll come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to everyone eagerly waiting for Him.
God offers us mercy, not judgment. Mercy is when we don’t receive the bad that we deserve. As God’s expression of mercy toward us, Jesus paid the ransom for all of humanity’s sins. The wages of sin is death, but God gave us the gift of eternal life through Christ Jesus.
God did what we never could. He sent His Son to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins. Jesus did this not just for us, but also for the sins of the whole world. Propitiation is defined as an atoning sacrifice. Sending Jesus as an atonement for our sins was God’s ultimate act of love.
God doesn’t expect perfection. All He asks is for our trust in what He did. This frees us from ourselves.
Scriptures:
Hebrews 9:28, NLT
Romans 6:23
Romans 3:25
1 John 2:2
1 John 4:10
For more on guarding your identity, check out Creflo Dollar’s 2-message series, How to Avoid Identity Theft.
Day 5Guarding Our Righteous Identity
Everyone loves getting gifts. There’s no downside to receiving something good that we didn’t have to earn. Our salvation and righteousness operate on the same level, only to a much greater degree. Because of Jesus Christ and His finished works, we can receive the things of heaven even without deserving them.
One of those things is a new, righteous identity that puts us on the same level as Jesus. Receiving from God hinges on faith. To prevent doubt from creeping in, we must know, absolutely and without a doubt, who we are in Him. This was what happened when the devil came to Jesus in the wilderness and questioned whether He was really the Son of God.
The enemy constantly whispers to us, suggesting that maybe we aren’t who God says we are. Knowing God’s Word is critical at times like this. The devil is the father of lies, and loves to accuse us constantly. By contrast, God is not a man that He should lie.
Jesus was accused often during His ministry. He was called a glutton and a drunkard, and the chief priests and council members bore false witness against Him. These accusations came from people who neither knew or believed who He really was. Like Jesus, we must know our true identity: a chosen people, royal priests, and God’s very own possession.
Our identity is a gift from God; Satan would like nothing better than to steal it from us through lies and deception. We avoid identity theft by believing what God says about us. Although we’re guilty of many sins, God’s free gift leads to our being made right with Him. When the devil tells us we don’t deserve to get into heaven because of our past mistakes, faith in what Jesus did shuts him up.
Scriptures:
Matthew 4:3-11
John 8:44
Revelation 12:10
Numbers 23:19
Luke 7:34, NLT
Mark 14:55, 56
John 10:30
1 Peter 2:9, NLT
Ephesians 2:8, TPT
Romans 5:16, NLT
For more on guarding your identity, check out Creflo Dollar’s 2-message series, How to Avoid Identity Theft.
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