MORE THAN DATA

What makes you, you?  Is it the social number the government assigns you?  Maybe it’s your credit rating and allowance to borrow money?  It’s safe to say that perspective has a great bearing on the answer. 

Universities would say it’s your education.  Wall Street says it’s your financial holdings and net worth.  Hollywood says it’s your movie credits while iTunes makes it clear you ain’t nothing until you’ve got a number one single. The social media arena has given us a new metric where it’s all about likes, shares, and views. A strange new world to quantify you. 

The reality is you are much more than data and worldly measurements.  You may be shorter than everybody else in the room but God says you can move mountains with your faith. You may be the poorest person in your city, but your faith in God can unlock the clouds and pour down rain in the midst of a drought that’s starving the nation.  The gym might measure you as the weakest person, but God is calling you a mighty person of valor because you believe in the midst of the raging storm.       

Media companies collect billions of bits of data off their users, but they don’t know us, not like someone in our home being our guide and shepherd.  Making Jesus Lord is not remotely parallel with having your data secretly mined.  Spies abuse secrets.  The Savior resurrects destiny.  Jesus knows you as Hebrews 13:21 says, “He works in you and accomplishes that which is pleasing in His sight.”  Philippians 2:12 calls this completing your salvation.  God doesn’t mine your data so He can take from you by converting you into a commercial product.  He knows you so He can love, help, and give to you.  God tailors His blessings to you.  His grace is not a religious device He uses to mass produce charms and trinkets to keep you wishing upon a star.  No! 

God’s grace is tailored to your true identity to fit you as an individual because the Savior calls you by your name, not by your purpose or bit rate.  He doesn’t call you by some barcode or insurance number.  You’re family in God’s eyes, through Jesus.  You’re precious, if you don’t mind me saying so.  Precious like a rare diamond or ruby of extreme, priceless value.  To identify yourself as anything less than what God has designed you, and predestined you for, is to dishonor God’s workmanship.  That’s right - you are God’s Own workmanship, recreated in Christ Jesus, is what Ephesians 2:10 says. 

The better you know who God has made you, the better and more accurately you live.  The less you know of God’s designs and plans for your life, the more confused you live.  This is why the battle over identity rages because it truly is the fundamental fork in the eternal road.  To disbelieve God about who you are is to disbelieve His promise for who you are.  That’s denying the Gospel.  That’s denying Jesus because He came to make you a child of God, not just forgive your sins.         

Data can be wrong and can be corrected.  You’re not data, and because of your intrinsic God-type design, you needed more than correction.  You needed to be redeemed, restored, regenerated, and reborn. Death had it’s grip of entitlement on you until Jesus saved you from the sentence of sin and gave you His resurrection life.  No, you’re not a piece of data.  You are a wonderful child of God in Christ Jesus.  Your name is actually recorded in Heaven, written down in the book of Life.  So yes, God has your number!  It’s perfectly synchronized within His family Name identifying you as a unique, child of God.  There’s only one you!

Let’s Pray the Word:

Lord Jesus, according to John 10 we know that as the Good Shepherd you call us by name.  You watch over us, and lead us.  We are Your workmanship predestined for the good work and plans you’ve designed us for.  That’s exciting!  This world is always trying to reduce our individuality to a metric and a simple measurable.  God we are made in Your divine image so therefore I am an inconvenient measurable.  That’s right, I will never fit into the world’s carnal mold for suppressing life.  I’ve been reborn of God and I am a child of light.  The darkness can’t suppress or contain me.  In Jesus Name, let there be light!  And the light conquers the darkness.  Amen!