"Hello, My Name Is"

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come.  The old has gone, the new is here!"  2 Corinthians 5:17

I remember being in high school and taking field trips to various conferences for some of the clubs I participated in.  There were a few wise guys in my class that always took advantage of the "Hello, My Name Is" stickers that we would be asked to wear.  Rather than writing their own name on the name tag, they would choose the name of a professional wrestler or athlete and walk around all day gathering all kinds of attention from people noticing their farce of a name tag.

Although those were juvenile, high school shenanigans, we all have a tendency to go through our lives believing that we are someone that we are not.  We let the devil constantly remind us of the sins we committed before our new life in Christ, and we allow those things to not only affect the way we properly view ourselves, but ultimately, they harm the way Christ desires for us to view ourselves as new creations.

A Christian contemporary song was recently released entitled, "Hello, My Name Is" by Matthew West.  It tells the unfortunate story of many Christians who live their lives letting the devil beat them down by reminding them of their past failures and short-comings.  It specifically speaks of how the devil whispers words like "regret" and "defeat" in our ears.

The song begins like this:

"Hello, my name is regret
I’m pretty sure we have met
Every single day of your life
I’m the whisper inside
That won’t let you forget

Hello, my name is defeat
I know you recognize me
Just when you think you can win
I’ll drag you right back down again"

Perhaps you've heard the words "regret" and "defeat" whispered in your ears.  Perhaps you live with the regret of poor choices that didn't just affect you, but possibly affected people you love.  Perhaps you live with the regret of many wasted years where you were consumed with the allure of drugs and alcohol.  Perhaps you regret mistreating people or thinking prejudiced thoughts about a particular race.

Perhaps the devil keeps reminding you of all of your defeats, like the time you lost your job or the year your family was ravaged by divorce.  It is the ultimate goal of the devil to keep us wallowing in who we used to be and to keep us from seeing ourselves for who we are now.  He wants to drag us down and keep us down. 

But we have to remind ourselves that we aren't that person anymore.  We can proudly look someone in the eye and say, "Hello, My Name is Child of the One True King!"  Whenever we became a child of the King, the King paid our sin debts and totally set us free.  The forgiveness that is provided in Christ doesn't just eliminate the penalty, it also wipes the offense away as if it were never there.  If Christ doesn't remember it, then why should we allow our identity to be wrapped around something that isn't even there anymore?

My favorite part of the song goes like this:

 

"I am no longer defined
By all the wreckage behind
The one who makes all things new
Has proven it’s true
Just take a look at my life
What love the Father has lavished upon us
That we should be called His children
I am a child of the one true King"

I hope you can boldly say today that you are a child of the one true King.  I hope and pray that you are living in the ultimate forgiveness that Christ offers and not allowing the devil to foster an attitude of regret and defeat in your heart and life.  Make a choice today to listen to the promises of God and not the lies of the devil.

The next time the devil tries to tell you who you are, you tell him,

"Hello, My Name is Child of the One True King!"