There are many words that we use and just assume that we know the meaning. Alive is one of such. Take a breath and articulate to yourself what it means.

Being alive speaks to three things:

• Aware of you
• Aware of the environment that surrounds you, and
• Recognising your relationship and responsibility to yourself and to your environment.

Easy, right! Maybe for you, but it took a bit of reflection for me to articulate this; yet understanding this is so crucial to our individual survival in the challenging days we live in. Let’s dig deeper.

Being aware of me is inseparable from the conviction that I was created by the One who created me, one who is superior to me.

Consider Job 33:4 (AMPC)

[It is] the Spirit of God that made me [which has stirred me up], and the breath of the Almighty that gives me life [which inspires me]

and combine this with Genesis 1:26-30 (TLB)

Then God said, “Let us make a man—someone like ourselves, to be the master of all life upon the earth and in the skies and in the seas.” So God made man like his Maker. Like God did God make man; Man and maid did he make them. And God blessed them and told them, “Multiply and fill the earth and subdue it; you are masters of the fish and birds and all the animals. And look! I have given you the seed-bearing plants throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food. And I’ve given all the grass and plants to the animals and birds for their food.” 

A number of things jump out at one from these scriptures; the first is IDENTITY! That’s what is most important and where anyone loses identity through ignorance or negligence, such a person is at risk! Do you know who you are? Created in the likeness of the great God? A child of God? Paul revealed and warned of the consequences of loss of identity of who you are in Romans 1:28-30 (AMPC)—And so, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God or approve of Him or consider Him worth the knowing, God gave them over to a base and condemned mind to do things not proper or decent but loathsome, Until they were filled (permeated and saturated) with every kind of unrighteousness, iniquity, grasping and covetous greed, and malice. [They were] full of envy and jealousy, murder, strife, deceit and treachery, ill will and cruel ways. [They were] secret backbiters and gossipers, Slanderers, hateful to and hating God, full of insolence, arrogance, [and] boasting; inventors of new forms of evil, disobedient and undutiful to parents.

One who has lost his identity is no different from an animal (who were not created in God’s image) and sadly has lost his bearing regarding the other two elements that define him or her being alive. Conduct and responsibility towards his or her surrounding environment is what Paul described in the details as shown above.

May I ask you dear friend, are you alive? Do you see why you have gone in the way described by Apostle Paul, given up by God because of your allowing yourself to be ignorant of or robbed of your identity in God! Thanks be to God who made a way for you to return and retrieve your original identity. You can return to the Father through Christ (John 14:6). You can take the step now and begin your restoration. Selah.


Pastor Afolabi Oladele