Are You a Counterfeit or the Real Thing?

While in Denver with the International Youth Convention, we took our students for quick tour of the Federal Reserve Bank Museum.   On one of the displays, we were supposed to determine which $50 dollar bills were genuine and which were counterfeit.  Some of the bogus bills were easy to detect with obvious imperfections. Yet, others took a little more observation.  Counterfeiting is big business and dangerous to our economy.  As a result, our government spends millions of dollars developing techniques to detour counterfeiters.  All of us have been subjected to the special pen used to check paper currency we use to purchase something.

It is a shame God doesn’t have a special pen to check the genuineness of the Christian walk, for I fear we have some counterfeits among us, those persons who talk a walk but don’t walk the talk.  In Galatians 5:19-23, Paul tells us the works of the flesh are observable as are the works of God’s Spirit.  No spiritual pen is needed.  The fruit, the character of our true nature, will be seen.  Look at the listings.  As we see others and evaluate our lives, which ones are most observable?  The genuine believer will display love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control in all areas of his or her life.  If these are not present and the acts of the sinful nature more prominent, we have a counterfeit.

Let us strive daily to produce the fruit of God’s Spirit in our lives.  Jesus reminds us in John 15:5, “If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do nothing.”  As we daily stay daily connected to the Lord, we need not fear being counterfeit Christians.