ID Cards

ID Cards

            In recent months Tennessee has faced a lot of criticism for its new voter identification law.  In order to vote in Tennessee you must now present a state-issued photo ID.  There have been many objections, most claiming that the goal of the law was to restrict the voting rights of a particular segment of our population.  An elderly woman from Chattanooga hit the national news when the agency commissioned to issue those IDs said that because her birth certificate and her marriage certificate used different names, there was no proof that she was who she said she was.  They refused to issue her an identity card.  That decision made no sense to me, but it makes sense that there should be a way to prove that we are who we say we are.

            How are Christians supposed to be identified?  We are supposed to be recognizable, aren’t we?  Is it the fish symbol displayed on the back of my car?  Is it the message on my t-shirt?  Is it the way I dress or fix my hair?  Is it the fact that my car backs out of the driveway at the same time every Sunday and everyone can tell by the way I dress that I am on my way to church?

            It’s none of these.  I don’t have to guess about what my ID should be.  Jesus told me.  John 13:34-35.  “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  By this shall all men know that you are my disciples if you have love one for another.”  People won’t know that we are Christians because we love everybody, though I think that would be a very good thing.  They will know us by the love we have for other Christians.

            What should that love look like?  I Corinthians 13 says love is patient, kind, not jealous, not boastful or arrogant, not selfish, not defensive, not overly sensitive, rejoicing in the truth, and so on.  But look at Ephesians 4.  Paul here is talking about the body. 

            Beginning at verse 1 he says we are to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

            Moving to verse 12, Paul mentions some of the types of service and says these are “for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.”

            Verse 15 says, “But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.”

            So the body is composed of different members all working together to build the body is love.  My job is to love as a member of the body.  I don’t have to be working constantly to figure out how to let people know I am a Christian.  I should be recognizable.

            Charlie Peacock in “A New Way to Be Human” says, “My hope is that others will name me as an honest-to-God student follower of Jesus, someone with a heart full of His brightness, following in the new way. It’s not wise to name yourself as a Christian unless you are actually embodying the way of Messiah Jesus. If you are embodying the way, it will be as obvious as Jesus was obvious. If it is obvious, the necessity of naming yourself will fade. Others will do it for you. Questions may arise, and if so, you answer them. If people want to know why you head in one direction and not another, tell them who you’re following.”

            Let your ID card be the way you love the other members of Christ’s body.

                                                                                    ~~Faith Himes Lamb