Credit Check: Please Verify Your Identity

1. Credit Check: Please Verify Your Identity

I recently had someone try and open credit cards in my name. I’ve been on the phone with the two companies, and now a credit reporting firm (as per identitytheft.gov) for pretty much the whole morning. I’m still on hold, and have to use the restroom as of this writing, but my protection of my identity, and the credit I’ve worked hard to rebuild is important. And, while my credit rating is still excellent, I’m making sure that no one can use my name (they had very few things right, but too many things correct for me to be comfortable) to try and open accounts and use my identity for their own purposes. So, I am doing what it takes to defend my “reputation,” as it were, credit wise.

It got me to wonder: how often do we verify our identity in Christ? Think about it: the world is constantly trying to define who we are, and to pull us away from who Jesus says we are. The world tries to define what a follower of Christ looks like, but He has specific terms that the world just fights against. The world is about fulfilling your urges now, while Christ is about looking ahead to the World to come. The world says, “give in to pleasure, do what makes you happy,” Jesus looked to the Cross, despising its shame for the Joy that was set before Him, saying to the Father “Not my will, but yours be done.”

If our identity is in Christ, then we need to measure ourselves against Him. Many believers build their identity on feelings, emotions, and traditions that have little or nothing to do with Jesus. So how can we do a thorough credit check? Simply put: measure your life against Christ through Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. If Christ is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, look at the Character and Nature of God through the Old and New Testaments. Cry out daily, “not my will but yours be done” and accept the answer. Bind up your marriage, your parenting, your being a son or daughter, your job, your school and everything you are in Christ Jesus. It is only when we are firm in His grasp that our identity is secure.

2 Corinthians 5

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.