Do You Know Who I Am?

by Mark Mason
via Sentry Magazine, Vol. 20 No. 2, June 1994

There is a story floating around about then-President Bush a few years ago. He was supposedly visiting a nursing home, where he took the hand of an elderly man walking the halls and asked kindly, "Sir, do you know who I am?״ The man replied, ״No, but if you ask the nurses, they can tell you. ״

There is a spiritual lesson to be learned from this amusing little story. It is this: If you allow others to determine your identity, you might be shocked and disappointed at the identity they give to you. How often is this true of us down at work, or at school, or at the fence in the backyard? Rather than making our Christian identity plain to all, we go along with the dirty joke, the racial slur, or the slanderous gossip. You see, we have allowed someone else to determine our identity... and the one they give us is not very Christ-like!

"Do not be conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds..." (Romans 12:2). Or, as one man translated it, "Do not let the world cast you into its mold." Make your identity clear to all.