Indentity Crisis

“Don’t you know who I am?” is the famous line that celebrities often use to get them out of a sticky situation, or to get them into somewhere they initially are excluded from.  But in one of the funniest stories of the last few weeks, one famous face had to use the line in a most unexpected situation.

    Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, was minding his own business walking in the grounds of Buckingham Palace when he was challenged by armed police who demanded to know his identity and the reason why he was there.  According to some reports, he was made to lie on the ground whilst he protested that this was his mum’s house, and he could go for a walk in her garden if he wanted to!  In a short time the confusion was sorted out, although the embarrassment to the police officer concerned might take a little longer to fade away.

    Just a few days earlier an intruder had evaded the security at the Palace and got into the building.  As a result, having been caught out once, the ‘boys in blue’ were being extra cautious and so the blunder resulted.  Being the Son of the Monarch was no use – they simply didn’t know who he was!
    When I heard the story I thought of a verse in the New Testament.  In John’s first letter, written to persecuted Christian believers in the first century he reminds them;
“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!  Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him” (1 John 3:1)

    One of the most wonderful things about being a Christian is that we become children of God.  That is not something that we are naturally, but a right we have when we trust in the Lord Jesus Christ (John 1:11-13).  But although God knows that we are His children, the people around and about us do not.  We are just another member of the population to them.  But just like with Prince Andrew, just because we are not recognized as such, it doesn’t make us any less the child of the Sovereign One.

    In the next verse of the same chapter of 1 John we read;
“Beloved, now we are the children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”

     That verse tells us that there will come a day when the reality of what a Christian is will be unmistakable and recognized universally.  When the Lord Jesus Christ returns to this world every eye will see Him and will have to acknowledge Him as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  Those who have trusted in Him will go to be with Him forever, and as well as seeing Him as He is, we will be radically transformed and will have a resurrection body like His.

Are you a child of the King?  Does He know you now?