Protecting Your Identity
Occasionally I will check my credit report to make sure no one has stolen my identity. On one occasion, I could not remember my user name for the Experian website. So, I clicked on the "Forgot Username" button to have it sent to me by e-mail.
Then they wanted my birthdate and my Social Security number. Ten minutes later the e-mail arrived with my username. I went back to the Experian website and logged in without any difficulty.
But logging in was not enough. I remained locked out until I typed in the six-digit number they texted to my phone. Finally, I was in and the screen said, "Thank you for helping keep your identity secure!"
Experian goes to great lengths to protect my identity. To log in as me, a thief would have to know my email, my login, my birthdate, my SS number, my cell number, and have my cell phone in their possession. If someone had all that information they would be able to impersonate me, take out loans in my name, and cause me great harm.
Of even greater value, though, is my identity in Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "If any man be in Christ he is a new creature, old things are passed away, behold all things are become new." This new identity is also worth protecting.
According to Jesus, there is a thief who would like to steal this identity, and he does this by lying to us about who we are and what we have been given in Christ (John 10:10).
We must be vigilant to maintain a strong sense of our spiritual identity in Christ, at least as vigilantly as Experian fights to protect our personal identity in this world.
"For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:4,5, NKJV)
Woman Faces Court For Parking Two Seconds Too Early
Richard Hartley-Parkinson reports:
Known only as Sarah, she ended up in court after it emerged that she had broken parking rules by arriving at a bay two seconds too soon.
... Judge Frank Caprio from the Providence Municipal Court, read details of the case which stated that she had parked in a bay at 9.59am and 58 seconds.
Parking was not allowed in the area between 8am and 10am.
He told her in mock anger: ‘You violated the city ordinances.’ He added: ‘Our parking enforcement offices are second to none in the country.’
She explained her actions by saying her car clock said 10am.
Judge Caprio laughed the charge out of court in Rhode Island after hearing details of the case.
He said: ‘I think 9.59am is close enough to 10am, matter is dismissed.
Is this what you imagine will happen when you stand before God? Are you hoping that He will, likewise, release you from the finer details of His moral will?
That’s not how it will work. You will either stand before God to be judged by the minutest details of your non-compliance, including the thoughts and intents of your heart, or you will stand before Him having been credited with the minutest details of Christ’s compliance. There is no middle-ground. There is no third option. It's either law or grace. You decide!
“Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law” (Galatians 2:16).
"Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God's sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin" (Romans 3:20).
The Perfect Crime
Jacob Baynham,with VICE Guided Tours, writes:
The blood is still drying on Clay McCann's hands when he walks into a remote ranger station, slides a warm gun across the desk, and informs the ranger that he's just killed four campers.
"Do you want me to call a lawyer?" the alarmed ranger asks.
"I am a lawyer," McCann says.
So begins C. J. Box's 2007 thriller Free Fire, the seventh in a book series about a Wyoming game warden. The novel's plot spins on the premise that in an uninhabited, 50-square-mile portion of Yellowstone National Park, you can legally get away with murder.
The book's premise originates from a 14-page article called "The Perfect Crime" by Michigan State University law professor Brian Kalt. The article describes a judicial no-man's land in the Idaho part of Yellowstone, where a person can commit a crime and get off scot-free due to sloppy jurisdictional boundaries.
... "I write about mystery, suspense, and crime, so the idea of a perfect crime anywhere, and especially in my neighborhood, was just really intriguing," Box told me over the phone.
His novel, Free Fire, made the New York Times extended best-seller list and continues to be popular.
The perfect crime seems a strange thing to call a violation of the law just because the perpetrator happens to find a loophole. The loophole might be perfect, but the crime? The only way to perfect a crime is to pay the penalty associated with it. Of course, in Jesus we find both. In HIm our crimes paid in full, having been nailed to the cross of Christ.
Thus, we find the loophole to end all loopholes, not in the Idaho part of Yellowstone, but before the Throne of Grace. It is the ultimate judicial no-man's land, where even those who are guilty of breaking the very laws of God can be released of responsibility. Not due to sloppy jurisdictional boundaries but due to the precious blood of Christ.
“You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:13-14).