Mistaken Identity

I Look Just Like You

I look in the mirror
With my physical eyes
All I see is the same old,
Same old pretty face the world knows;
I fail to see
What my spiritual eyes see
The continuous evolution
To your image;
But my spirit is glad
That one day I will hear
I’ve seen you before
Are you not Jesus?
And then I’d be matured to know
It’s not a mistaken identity nor an insult
But the truth
That I look just like you.

The Inspiration
I was not ready for any inspiration. I had just walked past the pedestrian gate into the compound of the people I wanted to see. It had been a 3 min struggle to open that gate and I felt all my energy had gone into trying to force the gate open. The Rita of before would wear a frown and transfer all aggression on anyone that comes my way. But I remembered the words of my best friend before he travelled. He said, “smile”. So, I forced the smile. Then the strangest thing happened – a little girl ran to me and called me “Mummy”. I laughed and replied, “How are you? So you don’t know who your mummy is?” And as I walked off I said to myself, “this is a case of mistaken identity”. My spirit man replied, “Should your identity be mistaken, whose identity do you want to have? I want to be mistaken as Jesus Christ!” Then I listened to the words of my spirit.

Let me share the words of a friend to another (you know yourselves and as you’re reading this, please take no offence. Your names are withheld but just to let you know your words really got me meditating). The friend said, “I don’t want to share this problem with you because you are going to tell me exactly what Jesus will tell me. If I want to know how Jesus will react to this situation, I can always tell by the way you will react.” If anyone has told you this, please consider it a compliment and a blessing.

If your identity is mistaken, who do you choose to resemble (it is a choice by the way)? Is it Jesus Christ, who is a son of God like we are? Or a pop star? Or anyone around us that we idolize? Let me start with the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:12 which says “Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.” God’s word, which is also likened to a mirror [James 1:23-25], makes us understand Christ only dimly in comparison with how we will see and know Him when He returns and we are with Him face to face. The good news to this came with the words of John who said, “Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but HE has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. BUT WE DO KNOW THAT WE WILL BE LIKE HIM, FOR WE WILL SEE HIM AS HE REALLY IS.” [1 John 2:2]

Let your spirit help you imagine seeing Christ and the moment you see Him you know Him because you are like Him. Right now, when we look at ourselves in the mirror we do not have complete knowledge of how He looks like (or how we look like). But we were made in His image [Genesis 1:27} and we are all sons of God, so we can be rest assured that we look like Him. As long as we have Christ in us, daily He is transforming us to His image.

What would it mean for your identity to be mistaken as Jesus Christ? It means someone sees you with characteristics that could only be likened to Jesus Christ (based on our imagination or what we know of Christ). It could be the way we talk, the faith we have, our approachability, our inner beauty, the compassion we show for others, our dedication to assignments he has given us, our integrity, how we show love, our moderation, our aura, self-control, thankfulness, our warmth, etc. The list is endless. But I wouldn’t call it mistaken identity anymore now that I know we look like him. All we need to do is reflect His character.

Beloved, I have learnt that we have what it takes to be like Jesus (there goes my favourite line again – He has given us all that pertains to life and godliness). Not only in character, but also in abilities [Power and Authority has been given to us – Matthew 28:18; 2 Cor 10:8]. This day, I choose to resemble Him.

Have a lovely day. As you reflect HIS character and glory, do not take it as mistaken identity when they say you look like (or are like) Jesus. That is what we are supposed to be.