Authorized Signatures

I was in a bookstore a couple of years ago and placed my credit card on the counter. I had not signed the card because I didn’t want someone to have my signature if the card happened to be stolen or lost. The woman behind the counter scanned it, then looked at the back and said, “I can’t accept this unless it’s signed.” I explained to her my reasoning, and she smiled and said again, “You’ll have to sign it to complete your purchase.” Not wanting to hold court over the matter, I signed the card. She then handed me the receipt to sign…and promptly compared the signatures, nodded, and returned my card to me. I wondered just how much safer my identity had become…
There is much talk of “identity theft”. We speak of the future of DNA identification, certain Internet upgrades to prevent user fraud, the placement of “biometric” data on credit cards (like a fingerprint) to secure information. All are to prevent our “identities” from being used by others. According to the standard estimate, $56.6 billion was lost last year in the United States due to identity theft. It’s a serious and costly threat; people rob you of your personal information to do with it as they wish and show little regard for you and your privacy.
Unfortunately, some people have the same view of God.
“Let’s say I give my entire life over to Him,” the reasoning goes. “He will take away my friends, my fun, and everything I really want. God will, in fact, ruin my life and take away who I am. He will steal my identity.” I’ve (sadly) spoken to more than one person about this subject. I always think about Matthew 16:24-26: Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” What exactly is Christ speaking of losing? Do I lose my identity and become a part of a faceless, nameless bowl of “spiritual pudding”? Do I fade into a type of Christian anonymity, absorbed by the masses? Look at what Paul wrote in Galatians 2:20: I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. So, spiritually, who I am before I begin to follow a life with Christ dies when I commit my life to Him (the Bible refers to this as the “old man”), but according to Jesus, when that happens, I find my life (“but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it”). I don’t lose a life that is worth keeping when I come to Him…I gain one beyond compare.
The person God wants you to be, the best and most valuable identity you could ever possess, is found only in a life with Him.
Are you living the identity He desires for you?

Dustin C. George
Minister to Single Adults
www.sevierheights.org