Stealing Who You Are

I received a phone call from an 800 number. The timing of this call was so unusual that curiosity led me to pick up the phone and see who could be selling or asking me for something so early in the morning. The call was from my credit card company, which wanted to ask me a few questions about my spending from the past weekend. My spending habits over the weekend had been 'unusual' and their computer had raised some red flags that had alerted them to some potential concerns.

The lady on the phone asked me if I had spent $1300 at a hardware store (It was at this point that I queried that they had the right person, as anyone who knows me knows that hardware stores are not anywhere that I spend any money in!). They asked me if I had spent $1,400 at a pool supply store in California and several other charges, totaling almost $ 3,500. After assuring them that I hadn’t been to California over the weekend and that I would get in trouble if I spent more than $5 at the hardware store, they cancelled my card and told me that I had been a victim of identity theft.

We live in a culture that seeks to steal more than just our credit card numbers from us.

We live in a world that, through its ways and its systems, aims to steal the identity that God has given to us. Consider all the signs, all the innuendo, all the people, and all the companies that seek to steal our identity as children of God?

- You don’t have this? – You're worthless!
- You don’t look like this? – You're ugly!
- You can’t overachieve? – You're nothing special!

…and before we know, if we forget that we are masterpieces of a God who was in awe of us as he made us and who made us with incredible intentionality (Ephesians 2:10).

King David says to the Father, “Search Me” (Psalm 139:23 & 24), pull my records, see who is seeking to steal my identity, and close down their attempts to steal my identity…because I don’t want them to steal who I am in you.

Jesus came because sin had stolen our identity! It had sold us a lie about who we are, and what we should do, and what matters in life. Sin has sold us a lie about what matters and why we are so important, and why we have every right to be prideful, arrogant, and selfish. That’s what the cross is about, as Jesus won back our identity for us – an identity that had been stolen by the fall. As my credit card was gracious not to charge me for these indiscretions, so Jesus, through his work of grace through the cross, does not hold our sin against us.