Identity

Was at our Wednesday morning group meeting. We wear name tags and mine kept slipping off my shirt onto floor. After several times of bending to pick up the tag and replace it on my shirt, I began to think: Is this how our identity is in a fallen world?

Do we wear a label that is supposed to be our identity: Is it what we do---doctor, lawyer, Indian chief, (apologies to Hoagy Carmichael and Paul Francis Webster); is it what we have---car, house, wealth, where we were born, reared, educated, what club or church or even charity we belong to; is it our favorite hobby, food, drink, book, television show, sports team; what/who is it for you that is your false identity?

The common theme in all of our false identities is that they are like my name tag---they are part of the creation--removable, lacking permanence or transcendence, having no eternal significance,falling away when the hot fires of life's stresses reduce false identity to ashes.

They are all replacements, imitations, of our true identity as children of the Most High God. He gave us all of those things and pronounced them good. But good has an extra "o" and while God is definitely good, good things are not God, they are gifts to be enjoyed, not who we are and not things to be worshiped.

Well, what label is permanent? What is your and my true identity if we are children of God? We are His creation, His beloved, the heirs of the New Earth, His Redeemed, those saved by the blood of the Lamb, those made in the image of God, the work-men and -women of God who He assigned the duty of having dominion over all His creation.

We may choose to ignore our identity; we may choose to allow the pleasures and passions of the flesh to obscure our intended purpose; we may allow the stresses of life and the worries of the day to make dim the Light that has been give to us; but He is sovereign and His purposes will not be thwarted. Our identity is not changed by our failure to see or acknowledge it.

Each morning as you go out, take time to know Whose you are; wear proudly the brand name of your Designer and Maker. Your identity, who you are--and Whose you are--has been ordained before the beginning of time. What you do today is not who your are; what you buy or sell, who you see, what you eat, what you drive, where you live, is not who you are. You are a child of God, indwelled by His Holy Spirit. True identity.