2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
One of the requirements of my teaching job consists of getting periodic fingerprints. The last time I tried, the folks scanning my prints reported they were unable to get a reading. My fingers had smoothed down to the point there were no distinguishable markings. Evidently fingerprints don’t regenerate because when I recently tried again, the results were the same. So I remain fingerprint-less.
I’m glad my identity doesn’t rest on outward indicators. Even more, I’m grateful I discovered my true identity—the one God purposed for me. The late Pope Benedict XVI put it this way, “Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed. Each of us is loved. Each of us is necessary.” Who better to help us discover our true selves than the one who thought us up with such loving intention?
Paul writes in the fifth chapter of 2 Corinthians that once we receive Christ, we become new people. Like receiving new fingerprints! We step right into God’s loving intent with a new identity that releases us from the chains of living for ourselves (v.15). An identity that encourages us to shoot for a higher reason to live (v.18). An identity so strong that it affects the way we view every other person on the planet (v.16).
So how about your identity?
As we approach a new year, maybe it’s a good time to check our spiritual fingerprints. Are they wearing down, weary from years of toil? Is the Lord marking you with new patterns of righteousness and configuring in you deeper grains of faith? Make no mistake, he will bring challenges our way to imprint us with broader marks of grace and love. Will we let him?
Maybe you are physically fingerprint-less, like me. But I pray as you and I enter this new year, our spiritual fingerprints will grow more and more identifiable. Identifiable as new creations.