“…and his name will be on their foreheads (Revelation 22:4b).”
Someone recently commented to me that I often speak about identity and they wondered why that is. I don’t remember exactly how I responded, but my conviction is that tragically people find their identity in things of fleeting, or very limited, significance. Our identity answers the question of who I am, and that’s a really important question.
Wealth, business success, beauty, fame, sexual orientation, sports team affiliation, ethnicity can all be things in which people find their “true self.” Yet for those who live in the eternal city, we hear that “his name will be on their foreheads.” His name on our foreheads denotes ownership - the one to whom we belong (the same could be said about the mark of the beast in Revelation 13:16-17).
For a follower of Jesus this is the truest and most all-encompassing answer to the question of our identity. It is not caught up in something fleeting like beauty. Nor is our identity defined by something of limited implications like our ethnicity or sexual orientation. No, our identity is found in the one to whom we belong - not only the one who made us and for whom we were made, but our identity also comes from the one who bought us. We are His. This truth is powerfully applied in a passage of scripture which often rings in my head. The apostle Paul wrote these words at the close of a passage in which he was calling the Corinthian church to sexual purity. Listen to how he closes his argument: “You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies (1 Corinthians 6:19b-20).”
This truth -- that we are not our own because we have been bought at a price - has far greater implications than merely our sexual life; it answers the question of who I am. I am His! With the name of our Lord on our forehead, we have assurance that we will never be forgotten or lost. We are forever His and have been marked so.
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