I really enjoyed Salvageable’s post called, “Jesus Christ, Identity Thief,” based on a sermon he recently heard. Nothing delights me more than people pondering faith outside of the box. This is a particularly good one, so I’d like to play off of the idea a bit.
First off, if you believe everything belongs to Jesus Christ anyway, perceiving him as a thief takes on different, more positive, connotation. He is not forcibly stealing anything that does not already belong to Him. Everything is His. Everything. He does also refer to His own self as a coming like a thief in the night, so we are speaking of a much-loved, much desired, and eagerly anticipated thief.
He has also robbed us of sin and death on the cross, robbed the enemy of his victory. Snatching victory out of the jaws of defeat like a thief in the night.
I like this idea very much because even though we frown upon thievery, we also loudly proclaim its virtue in our romance as in, stolen moments together. Stolen hearts. Stolen away. Rob me of my resistance, or whatever other sappy, romantic thievery analogies you wish to pursue, the point being, thievery and love tend to go hand in hand. In the language of love, thievery becomes virtue. God is love, so God as a thief of our hearts makes a great deal of sense.
“Stolen” has a lot of synonyms, “to appropriate” is one. Yes, Jesus Christ has appropriated my heart, my life, my being, my very identity. Appropriate, indeed.
Stolen also means to gain, to move, to win. In baseball when one steals a base, they are not actually picking up the base and running off the field with it. Stealing bases is a good thing. It actually means to advance, to progress, and to win.
Jesus Christ as identity thief is quite charming, too. We are busy dying to self so to speak, being conformed into His image. So He has stolen what is flawed and replaced it with something much better. I sometimes like to say the Great Potter molds you into the best version of yourself you can possibly be, changing your very identity.
The world too, tends to create so many negative labels and stereotypes so our worldly identity can be quite false, based on unpleasant words people have spoken over you, or credit scores, or other strange human perceptions of worth and value. Our identity in Jesus Christ is as the sons and daughters of a Most High God, having been created in our Father’s image, having such a worth and value in His eyes, He laid down His very life for us. A royal priesthood, people who will judge the angels someday.
So a hat tip to those who can think of faith outside the box, who can hand us fresh eyes to see things in new ways. Jesus Christ as much beloved identity thief, indeed.
MJThompson said:
Sadly ironic that ‘thinking outside the box’ has become equated with embracing true faith!
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insanitybytes22 said:
Oh ouch, isn’t that the truth?
I think we’ve gone and crawled into the wrong box! 🙂
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dawnlizjones said:
I was going to highlight copy/paste some stuff here, but, golly Becky, there was just too much….!!
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mitchteemley said:
Refreshing perspective. Anything that makes us see anew what our limitless Creator has done–and is doing–is OK by me.
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brownievsimao said:
A thief that exchanged our ashes 4 beauty!!! how wonderful is our God
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Citizen Tom said:
What I like about your blog is that you remind us to look forward to the coming of our Lord. The Bible warns us to be prepared, but that preparation is accepting Jesus into our hearts. Once that’s done we should be filled with joy. Yet the temptation is to condemn the unsaved, not to revel in being part of the Kingdom.
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Mel Wild said:
Awesome, IB. Loved it!
Jesus stole my shame, regret, my failure, my orphan fear…my old life…and He stole my heart, too! Yay! 🙂
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insanitybytes22 said:
Amen! Yayyy! 🙂
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SLIMJIM said:
This makes me think of how He will come as a thief in the night…
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insanitybytes22 said:
Indeed! I’m impressed, since discovering this post of Salvageable’s, I’ve noticed a whole lot of biblical references to thieves, not always in such a bad light. Even the thief on the cross has a happy ending, in an odd way.
LOL, this is not a commentary on how we should take up thievery, just that we should let the Lord steal our hearts….
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