The Identity Game

Let’s play a game.  Identify the Animal:
What kind of animal is this?

1. Just above the mouth a long snout that can drag the ground:
2. Long neck that puts the head way up into the tree branches:
3. Elongated body with no feet, slithering on the ground:
4. Slimy creature of the sea with tentacles all around:

Answers: 1. well, that is plainly an elephant!  2. well, that is plainly a giraffe!  3. well, that must be a snake!  4. well, could be nothing else but an octopus!

It’s usually quite easy to tell what kind of animal you are looking at, right?

Let’s play a different kind of game.  Identify the Truly Born Again Christian:

1. He goes to church regularly and often says he is a “Christian”: well, that is plainly a truly born again Christian. Right?
But wait: “going somewhere” and/or “saying you are”… can be false.
So, NO, his identity is unknown to us.

2. She acts like, talks like, and professes to be a “Christian”: well, that is plainly a truly born again Christian.  Right?
But wait: how do we know her true heart… the sincerity factor, the truthfulness factor?
So, NO, her identity is unknown to us.

3. They can answer just about any theological question with quotes from the Bible: must be truly born again.  Right?
But wait: knowing facts and spouting knowledge – is not required for salvation!  We can’t see their heart.
So, NO, their identity is unknown to us.

So, what about your attempt to identify “a true follower of Christ“, someone who is truly born again?

Would that it were so easy!  What IF just looking at a person would identify them as LOST or SAVED?  Then evangelists would skip-over all the “saved” and only speak to “the lost”, those in need of salvation.  But God has deemed that through the foolishness of preaching to everyone —- the not-saved can hear and then accept God’s invitation, or not.

To identify a soul truly yielded to Christ takes more than merely looking at them.   Salvation is a thing of our hidden heart – the invisible sincerity factor, the unseeable truthfulness factor.

The true identity of the truly born again believer is full of unknowable factors, especially with all the easy fake facade life one can live these days.  Only God Himself can know your heart.  So only God can tell if someone is or is not truly born again.

But you can know if you yourself are born again, or not.  Others cannot see into your heart, but you can.

“Have you examined your life closely – to prove that you truly match-up with Christ, or not – your beliefs, your standards, your “causes”, your lifestyle, your habits, your voting record, who you cheer, who you condemn, who you revile, who you support with time or monies or votes…?”  – Source: Making God

The Bible says we need to examine ourselves to see if we really are “in the truth”, or not.  Are you “in Christ“?

We are not saved by “doing”,
but we know by our doings
that we are Christians…
because we see evidence
of the change He has effected in us –
we know that His Spirit is working in and through us.
-Source: Getting Born Again

Read the Bible so you know what God has promised.  Cast away your doubts by quoting assuring verses.

“God said it.
I believe it.
And that settles it for me.”
(Author of lyrics – unknown.)

Keep current with God.  Examining our self gives us confidence.  We see the Scriptures and we are confident we have sincerely accepted Christ as Lord and Savior.  We are following Him with what our life is all about.  If we confirm this for ourself – then we can know that we have been saved and that we have eternal life!  We will fail, we will fall, we will sin – but we know we are in Christ and we are forgiven.

2 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; ² and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

³ By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. ⁴ The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; ⁵ but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: ⁶ the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.  – 1 John 2:1-6

¹⁵ Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God…. ²⁰ If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.…  – Read the whole section: 1 John 4:14-21

¹¹ And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. ¹² He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.  ¹³ These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. – 1 John 5:11b-13

FOR MORE:

Assuring Verses of God’s Salvation (coming soon)

I live with confidence

Genuine – Or False

Is this you?

What sort of person are you?

Be a little more Christian

Realities God Has Established

God Damned “Believers”

Entrance Granted Into the Eternal

Being Christian

Practicing Sin – Not Following Christ

How Much Is …Enough?

What Jesus Taught

More Than Conquerors – In Christ

The Righteous Person