Who do we think we are?

I had the opportunity to visit and browse around a couple of Christian bookstores today. While I was passing the time window shopping, I thought to myself how I would like to buy a bumper sticker or some little knick-knack with a faith based message/theme. I even thought about how cool it would be to purchase a number of, oh, I dunno...bookmarks or something with a certain phrase or scripture; and give them out to people in the Life Group that I am in...we could all have the same item and kinda like the special decoder ring we needed to be in that secret club as kids; we would have something that set us apart yet linked us together. Then a thought struck me...a bumper sticker or bookmark doesn't make one a Christ follower. In fact, all of the trinkets and baubles in the world; singularly or collectively, can not truly illustrate who we are. That thought led to my asking myself, "Well, who do we think we are?"
See, in our society, well, in most societies, we use symbolism to express to those around us a little bit of our personality and character. It may be a phrase on a hat, a picture on a t-shirt, a certain piece of jewelery...whatever...but, all of these symbols are meant to give complete strangers and casual aquaintences a peek behind our personal curtain at who we believe ourselves to be. However, we have to remember who we really are...according to God.
God's word says we are bad, flawed, damaged, (Romans 3:10, 3:23). And because of our character flaws we can never aspire to greatness, (Romans 5:12)...except...
Except the fact that God loves us (John 3:16, Romans 5:8) with a love so deep and vast that we can not comprehend it. He gave His ONLY son; an action that very few, if any, of us could do; unblemished and holy, to die so that we can in fact rise to heights that we do not deserve (Romans 8:32). It is due to the shed blood of Jesus that the flawed is made flawless, the damaged is repaired, the bad is made good.
So, the next time you and I have the desire to put on and/or display some type of symbol showing everybody else out there who we are, remember we are already wearing the most precious of all symbols...the blood of the Lamb...let all who look upon us see Christ in our actions...that's all we really need to show who we are...