-Pst.Gavin Aleogho
For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by Love.
Galatians 5:6
Identification badges are used primarily for Identification purposes, to identify the person wearing it. Identification badges can come in forms of ID cards or just badges. For example, two different schools can be using the same uniform colour. But to differentiate the students, you either look at the badge on the uniform or you can decide to demand for an ID card, especially when the uniform is not put on.
As followers of Christ, we also have our identification badges. Our identification badge is not the stickers we got from our local Churches. It is not the t-shirts, wristbands, tags, Church badges, neck pedals or whatever we got from our Church, which are bearing our local churches’ names. They are not the scriptural ways true believers are to be identified. Even as good as the hard copy Bible is, it is still not the way to identify a true child of God.
According to the gospel of John, our Lord Jesus Christ gave us a simple way by which we can be identified as His followers. He said: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
(John 13:34-35)
The whole commandment of God that is given in the entire Bible can be summed up in one word, “LOVE”. Like our Lord Jesus said, it is only when we exhibit the virtue of love that the world will know that we belong to Him.
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. (John 13:35)
In other words, without love, we can’t be easily identified as Jesus’ followers. This implies that love is the identification badge of the believers.
If love is so important and fundamental in this kingdom, it is therefore important that every believer should be well-grounded in the truth of what love means from God’s perspective.
There is no doubt that every believer in Christ Jesus is greatly endowed with unquantifiable riches of God ranging from God’s grace, His power, His anointing, the Spirit of God etc. As great as these riches are; they are invisible to the eyes of the world. It is only through the vehicle of love we can actually display this richness of God in us for the world to see.
Love in this kingdom is not a feeling, but a way of life. It is the badge that we put on that helps the people of the world to easily identify us that we are children of God. And we are expected to put on this badge every time, irrespective of where we find ourselves.
Love is the only valid spiritual document that identifies us as followers of Christ to the world. It is not our prayers, faith, doctrines or religious activities. All this has their place, but if we must attract people to Christ with our lifestyle, then it must be by love.
In the same vein, through our love life, people do not need to ask if we are of Christ, because they will clearly see God the Father in us, “for God is love.” (1 John 4:8).
Like every ID card that expires and that needs to be renewed; we must constantly renew our ID card of love, otherwise when it expires we won’t have any other means to identify ourselves to the world as followers of Christ.
Thus, we can’t claim to be serving God while we ignore our fellow man. We can’t claim to love God when we can’t love our fellow brother. We can’t claim to honour God while we ignore people made in His image.
If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
1 John 4:20
