Calvary Community Church

Student Reflections

A Christian Photo ID: Our Identity in Christ

What an identity we have in Christ! Have you ever thought about what your photo ID would look like if it included your identity in Christ?

 

1. We are spiritually blessed.

2. We have been elected and adopted.

3. We have been redeemed and forgiven.

4. We have an inheritance.

Maybe it would look something like this...

Our understanding of who we are is central to our understanding of grace.

Doubly Undeserving

Apart from Christ, we are doubly undeserving of any blessing. In Chapter 3 of Don’t Waste Your Life, John Piper gives this list:

1. We are creatures with no claim on our creator.

2. We are sinners. We have fallen short of his glory (Romans 3:23).

First, we are creatures with no claim on our creator. Apart from Christ, our photo ID would probably say “Under 21.” It would probably say “Valid while receiving instructions from and accompanied by a licensed adult driver occupying the seat beside the driver.” Even worse, it would say, “Bill of rights does not apply to this person.”

 

Piper writes, “[God] is not bound or obligated to give us anything”—not life, corrective lenses, or organ donations. “He gives, he takes, and he does us no injustice (Job 1:21).”

 

Second, we are sinners. Our photo ID apart from Christ would look really bad. It would say, “Convicted felon.” There would be, so to speak, a warrant out for our arrest.

Amazing Grace

This is what is amazing about God’s grace. We are dead in sins. We have no bill of rights. We are a convicted felon. Yet because of God’s mercy and love, God makes us alive with Christ. By grace we have been saved (Ephesians 2:5,8).

When we are saved, our old identity is thrown out. The incriminating photo ID that says “Convicted felon,” “Bill of rights does not apply,” is thrown out. We become a new creation, and we are given a new identity. “The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (Second Corinthians 5:17). Not only do we get a new ID. Not only are the charges against us dropped. All this is done free. There are no fees. It is a free gift.

 

This article was written by Bobby Ratliff.

Weekly Memory Passage: Matthew 20:26b-28 (ESV)

But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.