Ponder on this. Queen Esther was a woman so confident in her own identity as a Hebrew to the point that she could deny that same identity to embrace a whole different nationality, a Persian, to save souls… millions for God’s Kingdom… without even losing her true self in the process!
You know who else did that? God in Jesus! God gave up his identity as the King of heaven to come to the earth as Jesus Christ, a man, born in a manger and laying on a bed of straw around horse poop, and later to be rejected by many… to save trillions for God’s Kingdom! And all the while never losing his true spiritual identity.
Because your authentic identity lies within your unrestricted uninhibited spirit, and that trumps the identity in your flesh every time! However, you must learn to be so confident in your human identity that you can step out of it into your spiritual one as needed and not lose yourself, but rather gain more of you!
So when God says that in order to be saved, you must deny yourself and take up your cross, now you have a clue of what denying your self means. A true Christian has to be prepared at times to trade in their earthly identity for their spiritual one that is totally uninhibited! How are you holding back by dwelling too much in the confines of your mortal body and culture? Are you too stuck in what you believe defines you in the flesh that you cannot move out of that zone to do business for the kingdom of God?
The Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23:
19 Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.
Time to meet your spirit through Christ, because the true you lies in your spirit. If you are a follower of Christ then follow him there, because he modeled that life for you!