Joel Osteen - Mistaken Identity
- Watch
- Audio
- Donate
- Contact Us
I want to talk to you today about mistaken identity. Victoria and I went on a hiking trip a while back, and one of the activities they offered was a class on falconry. This instructor had half a dozen birds in cages, and one of them was a hawk. It was huge, with a wingspan over five feet, so strong and powerful. He had it on his arm. There was a little wire around the hawk’s claws, and it was connected to the man’s jacket. A couple of times during the presentation, something bothered the hawk, and it wanted to fly away but could only go a couple of feet because of that tether. He would put that hawk right up next to his face, where they’d touch each other. He’d look it in the eyes and rub its belly, where that beak was just a couple of inches from his nose. That’s one of the hawk’s main weapons.
At one point, I asked the instructor, «Why doesn’t that hawk try to claw you or use its beak to get away?» He began to explain a concept called misimprinting. When a bird is hatched, it imprints on the first moving thing it sees, whether it be a bird, another animal, or a person. It develops this psychological connection, and that’s what the bird begins to identify with. He said, «When this hawk hatched, I was the first thing it saw. It thinks I’m its mother. It’s been misimprinted.» He told how, even though the hawk is powerful, even though it’s a natural-born predator, it can’t survive in the wild, doesn’t know how to hunt, how to defend itself, or how to interact with other birds. All because, in its early years, it got confused about its true identity.
I read where researchers found a Canada goose that was living with a bunch of ducks. Even though the goose was bigger and made to fly higher, it always acted like a duck. They discovered that it was hatched in a duck’s nest. The first thing it saw were all these ducks. It didn’t know any better. It imprinted on the wrong species. The result was lifelong confusion. It never soared, couldn’t protect itself, and didn’t reproduce like it was designed. It had a mistaken identity. I wonder how many of us have been misimprinted. We were made in the image of God. He has crowned us with His favor. He calls us blessed, strong, and free. But perhaps the first thing we saw was mediocrity and insecurity, addictions, and people who compromised. Now we’ve let that become our identity. We think that’s who we are.
Can I tell you that is a misimprint? That may be what you’ve seen, but that is not who you are. You are a child of the Most High God. Don’t take on that false identity. Don’t get connected to the wrong species, so to speak. You may have been raised by a bunch of ducks. No offense, but by people who didn’t soar, who accepted mediocrity, or by turkeys, people who were critical, complained, or were jealous, or by chickens, people who were insecure, inferior, and had no vision. You didn’t know any better. You let that imprint on you. That’s become your identity. The good news is you can be reimprinted. You can override any wrong imprinting. The scripture says you are transformed by the renewing of your mind. The way you correct that misimprinting is to go back to who God says you are. You are not how you were raised. You are not how someone treated you. You are not what they said. That’s not your identity. They didn’t breathe life into you. They didn’t know you before you were formed in your mother’s womb. God did. Go back to the one who created you and agree with who He says you are.
Something powerful happens when you say, «I am blessed. I am valuable. I am free. I am forgiven. I am victorious.» In the unseen realm, chains are broken. Forces of darkness are pushed back. Don’t go through life with mistaken identity. Are there areas where you’ve been misimprinted? You’ve let your environment and the examples you’ve seen become your identity, and now it’s limiting you. Like that hawk, you have all this God-given potential, all this talent, strength, and skill, but you’ve identified with something lesser. You see yourself as not able, not disciplined, not talented. Why don’t you start a new recording in your mind? That’s what’s going to transform you by what you’re thinking.
As long as you’re thinking like a duck, you’re going to quack. As long as you’re thinking like a chicken, you’re going to go around pecking, looking down, not expecting anything good. I mean, a chicken has wings but can’t really fly. That’s not who you were created to be. God said you will soar like the eagles. God said you are the head and not the tail. He said your children will be mighty in the land. If this is going to happen, there has to be some reimprinting, some renewing, transforming, because most likely we’ve all been misimprinted in some area.
And it’s not just from how you were raised, but you go through disappointment. Your business went down. You make mistakes; guilt and condemnation come. You’re fighting depression, anxiety, thoughts saying you’ll always struggle. Don’t take on that identity. If you’re dealing with sickness, keep this thought: you are not a sick person trying to get well. You are a well person fighting off sickness. Health, wholeness, vitality -that’s who you are. Anything else is only temporary. It’s just passing through. «Well, Joel, all my family’s depressed. Grandmother was depressed. Mother was depressed. The dog’s depressed. The goldfish.» Can I challenge you? You’re the one to break out of that rut. You’re the one to set a new standard.
Don’t pass down a wrong identity. There may have been generations of misprinting in your family line, but the buck can stop with you. You can reimprint who you are. You can start the right identity. When you transform your mind, you will transform your life and even impact generations to come. I talked to a lady who had gone through a divorce, and it was very hurtful. There was infidelity involved, and she was not only discouraged but also very down on herself. Thoughts whispered, «You’re not good enough. He wouldn’t have left you if you were more attractive and had a better personality.» If you believe those lies, they will begin to misimprint you. You will take on the wrong identity. Even though you’re a masterpiece made in God’s image, you’ll start living like you’re unworthy, not valuable, with nothing to offer.
The enemy works overtime in this area. He’d love to distort your identity to keep you from recognizing who you really are. So, like that hawk, even though you’re powerful, talented, and have all this potential, you’ll never step into the greatness God put in you. Now that hawk, unfortunately, can’t change. He’s been misimprinted permanently, but not you. You can be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Pay attention to what you’re thinking. Are there things limiting you, telling you you’re not enough, that you can’t be successful, and that you’ll always be addicted, lonely, struggling? Why do you think that way? Could it be that’s the enemy trying to deceive you into mistaking your identity? Thinking that you’re a chicken when really you’re an eagle? You were created to soar.
We see this way back in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. They were living in paradise, enjoying their lives, blessed and grateful. But when they ate the forbidden fruit, suddenly they were afraid. They felt guilty and ashamed. They recognized they were naked. They ran and hid and tried to stay away from God. The first thing the enemy did was to try to change their identity. You’re not worthy. You’re not valuable. You don’t deserve it anymore. He was trying to misimprint them. He uses the same strategy today. When we make mistakes and go through failures, he always goes for our identity. You’re a failure. You’re unworthy. You’re not talented enough. If you take on that identity and start seeing yourself that way, you’ll miss your destiny. Later in the day, God came walking through the garden. «Adam, where are you?» Adam said, «God, we’re hiding because we’re naked.» God said, «Adam, who told you you were naked?»
Anything that’s trying to make you feel less than and not enough, you need to ask yourself, where did that come from? That’s the enemy whispering his lies. God is saying, «Who told you you’re not talented? Who told you you’re not attractive? Who told you you’ll always struggle? Who told you you can’t accomplish your dreams?» Tune out all the lies and reprogram your mind with who God says you are. You may have gone through disappointments and times you didn’t measure up. You have good reasons to live condemned and discouraged, but nothing that’s happened to you has changed who you are. You are still a child of the Most High, full of power, full of potential. No mistake you’ve made, no failure, no weakness has changed your identity. You are still worthy, valuable, a masterpiece.
This is what happened with the Israelites. They had been in slavery for 400 years in Egypt. Generation after generation, they were mistreated and looked down upon, and God saw the injustice and supernaturally delivered them. Pharaoh let the people go, and they headed toward the promised land. But you can imagine, after all that time in captivity and oppression, what their identity was. Even though they were God’s chosen people and had His blessing, they still saw themselves as slaves. They came out of Egypt, but Egypt never came out of them. That imprint was so strong, generations deep: «We’re slaves, man. We’re poor. We’re defeated.» Things can become ingrained in us to where they' re passed down from generation to generation. It’s what they saw growing up -poverty, struggle, and injustice. The babies born didn’t know any better; they identified with it and took on that mindset.
Here’s how powerful a misimprint can be: they were finally free, but they kept wanting to go back to Egypt every time they faced adversity. «Moses, why did you bring us out here in the desert to die?» That didn’t make sense. Who would want to go back to being mistreated? Injustice. That’s what happens when we’ve been misimprinted. When we’ve let the enemy distort our identity, there may be negative things in your family line for a long time. They seem normal to you. Everyone’s addicted or has problems with anger or staying faithful in relationships or thinking they can be successful. That will continue to get passed down until someone rises up. Someone has to recognize this is not who we are. This is mistaken identity. This is a misprint.
You can be the one to break the negative cycle. You can set the new standard. It starts in your thinking. You have to delete any strongholds that contradict who God says you are. Thoughts tell you you’ll never break that addiction. God says, «Whom the Son sets free will be free indeed.» Don’t believe the lie that the addiction is just who you are. You are free. You are whole. No weapon formed against you will prosper.
«Joel, I’ve had a lot of bad breaks, and closed doors, and this person walked away.» You’re right where the Israelites were. Don’t make the mistake they made and take on that identity, or you’ll always want to go back, thinking, «This is who I am.» No, God has beauty for those ashes. He said He’d pay you back double for the unfair things that may have happened to you, but it didn’t change who you are. You were still a masterpiece. You’re still a prized possession. You still have a future and a hope. Or how about the lie that you’ve made too many mistakes? You’ve gotten too far off course. You can’t be blessed now. Some of the heroes in the Bible made great mistakes.
The Apostle Paul, you remember, started off trying to kill believers. He was the greatest enemy of the church. In a split second, God changed him. He went on to write over half of the books in the New Testament. It would have never happened if he’d kept the wrong imprint: «I’m washed up. I’ve done too much wrong. I don’t deserve it.» Those mistakes didn’t lessen your value. The enemy is called the accuser. He’s going to try to use what you’ve done wrong to misimprint you, to get you to see yourself as unworthy, not valuable. Just sit on the sidelines. Do yourself a favor: tune all that out and get in agreement with God. Reprogram your thinking. I am forgiven. I am redeemed. I am restored. I am the righteousness of God.
The Israelites came to the promised land. They were camped next door. Moses sent 12 men to spy out the land. After 40 days, 10 came back and said, «Moses, there are giants in the land. We were in our own sight as grasshoppers as we were in their sight. The giants you face in life don’t determine who you are. They reveal who you are. Notice how they saw themselves. We were as grasshoppers. You are talking about the power of a wrong imprint. These people had just seen God deliver them out of slavery, part the Red Sea, and drown their enemies. They saw manna for breakfast each morning in the desert. Supernatural provision.
You would think they would see themselves as mighty and powerful, knowing that they were God’s chosen people. But it was just the opposite. They never got rid of their slave mentality. They saw themselves as weak and unable because of their mistaken identity. They never did go into the promised land. Don’t let that be you. Are there areas where you’ve had a misimprint? Where what you’ve seen, what you’ve been through, and how someone treated you has caused you to have a distorted image of who you are? You’ve taken on the identity of the environment you’ve been in.
Here you are, this strong, powerful eagle destined to soar, but you have a duck mentality, a limited mindset because of what you’ve seen. You have to know that is not who you are. Your environment is not your identity. Your identity comes from your Creator. God breathed His life into you. Whether you’re in the palace or in the slums, none of that changes your worth. That doesn’t change your value. Here’s the key: how you see yourself is what matters. If you see yourself as limited, unable, not attractive, you’ll live that way. But if you see yourself as valuable, strong, and successful, you will live a victorious life.
This is what my father had to do. He was raised very poor. His parents were farmers, and they lost everything during the Great Depression. Many times they didn’t have enough food to eat. Daddy didn’t know any better. That’s the identity he took on: poor, defeated, and never able to do anything significant. But at 17 years old, walking home from a nightclub at 2:00 in the morning, he began to think about God and what he was going to do with his life. His family knew nothing about faith. They had no kind of religion. But the next day, he went to church with a friend and gave his life to Christ, being the first one in the family. He felt God calling him to become a minister. That didn’t make sense. He didn’t have any training or experience. He told his parents he was going to leave the farm and start ministering, and they didn’t understand and tried to talk him out of it. All his parents had known was a life of struggle, mediocrity, and trying to survive.
That was what had been ingrained in my father’s thinking. It had been passed down for generations. It looked like it would continue. But my father rose up and said, „No, this is not who we are. This is a misimprint. We are not defeated, limited people. We are children of Almighty God. We are blessed, strong, prosperous, holy, forgiven, and victorious.“ He transformed his life by renewing his mind. He took on a new identity — who God says we are. He changed the course of our family line. My siblings and I grew up with a different imprint. Are there wrong imprints robbing you of your true identity? You can change it. It starts in your thinking. It’s what God said to Adam: who told you that you can’t rise higher? Get rid of those lies and start believing what God says about you.
Judges chapter 6, Gideon was hiding in a wine press, afraid of the enemy army surrounding the city. Every time their crops blossomed, these bandits would come and try to take them away. While Gideon was worried and fearful, an angel appeared and said, „Mighty hero, the Lord is with you. You are to deliver the Israelites from the Midianites.“ God called him a mighty hero when he was afraid and intimidated. God calls you who you really are. Gideon was confused. He said to the angel, „How can I deliver the Israelites? I come from the poorest family. I am the least in my father’s house.“
What was Gideon’s problem? He had been misidentified. He saw his environment as less than. He thought he was at a disadvantage. He believed he couldn’t leave his mark. The fact is, Gideon was a mighty hero. He was a history maker. That’s who God destined him to be. But he let the wrong identity take root. He believed the lies that defined him by his environment. He thought he was like everyone around him. This angel showed up to tell him who he really was.
Gideon kept making excuses. „I don’t see how; we come from the wrong family. This obstacle is too big.“ He went back and forth with the angel. Finally, he agreed to go out and lead the Israelites. That’s when he discovered the favor, strength, and courage that he’d never known. By the time the battle was over, the people were shouting, „A sword for the Lord and a sword for Gideon!“ A little earlier, he was hiding. Now, he’s leading the charge with people shouting his name. Gideon went on to become a hero of faith. This would have never happened if the angel had not shown up to correct his identity. As long as he saw himself as limited and weak, he would have stayed in hiding and missed his destiny.
Maybe God sent me today to help correct any wrong identities and remind you who you really are. There’s a mighty hero in you. You are strong. You are valuable. You are talented, attractive, favored, and empowered. Don’t let a wrong identity keep you from your greatness. Reprogram your thinking with what God says about you. Tune out all the misinformation, the negative, the limited, and the feelings of not being enough with too many mistakes. The enemy would love for you to become misidentified so you will miss your destiny. But this is a new day. God is re-imprinting you. There’s a new image taking root. No more grasshopper mentality, but a mighty hero mentality. No more „can’t do it,“ but „well able.“ No more „not valuable,“ but „masterpiece,“ made in the image of Almighty God.
A friend of mine was raised here in the Fifth Ward in Houston back in the 1960s, and it was pretty rough back then. A lot of gangs and drugs, and his father wasn’t around. While his mother was working, he started skipping school, getting into trouble, and stealing things — robbing. One day, the police were chasing him, and he was running through a neighborhood. He crawled under a house that was up on blocks. They had a police dog after him, so he opened up the sewer and covered himself in waste and filth so the dog couldn’t smell him, and he got away. But sitting in that filth, something said, „You were made for more than this. This is not who you are.“
He went by a gym one day and saw some people boxing. He walked in as a teenager and told the man he wanted to box. The man was rude, saying, „Get out of here, kid. I don’t have time for you.“ As he was leaving, feeling dejected, another man came over and said, „Listen, son. If you want to box, I’ll train you, and if you’ll work hard and stick with it, you can become an Olympic champion.“ He didn’t even know the young man; he had never met him, but he saw something in him. Like the angel with Gideon, sometimes you need people to speak faith into you, to tell you who you really are. Nobody had ever told that young man he could do something great. All he heard was, „You’re not good enough. You’ll never amount to anything. You can’t even stay out of trouble.“
That day, a stronghold was broken in his mind. That misimprinting began to change. He thought, „Maybe I’m not who I think I am. Maybe I’m not defeated, undisciplined, with no future.“ He began to reprogram his mind. That coach not only told him what he could become, but he also gave him a pair of boxing shoes and boxing gloves. No one had ever given him anything. He had never boxed before, but one year later, George Foreman was an Olympic champion. He won the gold medal and went on to become the heavyweight champion of the world. When he retired, he became a pastor across town, always talking about what God can do and how He can turn any situation around. It’s amazing what happens when we get rid of the wrong identity. Amen.
I wonder if there are areas where you’ve been misimprinted. Like George, like Gideon, I’m just average Joel. I can’t do anything great; I’ve been through too much. The truth is, you’re a mighty hero. You have greatness in you. You have to clear out all the lies that are trying to deceive you into being less than you were created to be. You can be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Start dwelling on what God says about you, not the limited, can’t-do-it, not-valuable thoughts. How about the strong, talented, mighty hero thoughts?
God is going to take you further than you can imagine. Gideon never dreamed he would become a hero of faith. My father never dreamed he’d leave the farm and go on to impact people all over the world. What God is going to do in your life will supersede anything you can imagine. Now, don’t limit Him with a wrong identity. You may have had some misimprintings — things you believed that you didn’t know any better. But I believe and declare today God is reimprinting. Strongholds are being broken. Forces that have held you back are coming down. The mighty hero is coming out-your true identity in Jesus' name. And if you receive it, can you say amen?