It’s happened more times than I can count. People mistake my name, calling me “Jeff” instead of “Jim.” It’s a frequent, albeit unintentional, alteration of my personal identification. Maybe it’s because “Jeff” rhymes with my last name, “McNeff?” Whatever the reason, it happens so regularly that I often just answer to it.
I became “Jeff” in my junior high yearbook. A colleague at the Department of Justice knew me as “Jeff McKnight.” Even a popular online devotional website incorrectly identified me as “Jeff” for months before finally making the correction. Ironically, the name my friend at DOJ used eventually became my official undercover identity for years, simply because I’d grown accustomed to responding to it. But it wasn’t my true ID.
The same can be said for our spiritual ID. Perhaps you’re known as “The Bible Guy,” or “Christian Zealot?” Maybe you’ve been labeled something else entirely. Yet the truth, for me, is that I’m simply a “child of God.” This is a right I’ve claimed by believing in and receiving Jesus as my Messiah, which means Christ. I have confidence in this based upon the opening to John’s gospel: “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,” (John 1:12).
So, whether you call me Jim or Jeff doesn’t really matter. My given name is secondary to the importance of my status as one of God’s children. It’s about who I am at my core, not what people call me.
What is your ID? What name or label defines you? More importantly, what identity have you claimed before God?
-Jim, aka Jeff