Subject: What's your disguise?

As a kid growing up in the 1950's, I used to play the action hero of that day, Superman. I watched on our black and white TV (no, those were the only "colors" on the screen, not the colors of the TV set!) as he emerged from the phone booths or closets he had entered to change from his "Clark Kent" disguise. His mighty leaps into flight as he raced off to rescue those weaker than him made several of us pin our capes (actually, large bath towels) around our necks and race up and down the street in imagined flight. We could whip all kinds of imagined foes, once we donned our "Superman" duds. For the longest time, we would watch this weekly show, wishing we could do all the wonderful things he could do, like "being faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound." (For those who think these descriptive phrases from that show sound "wimpy," you must remember our "super heroes" didn't have the special effects available to TV viewers today; Hollywood couldn't fake things as well then).

Anyway, one point that never bothered us about the show then, in our youth, was that the only visible difference between Clark Kent and Superman, beside the clothing, was a pair of glasses. Okay, we were young and gullible, caught up in the action, but reeeaalllllyyyy, tell me, how blind could Lois, Perry, Jimmy, and the others be who saw Clark daily? I mean, they worked with him all the time, yet, he disappears one second, Superman appears seconds later, looking exactly the same (MINUS THE GLASSES, OF COURSE), and none of them ever said, "Gee Superman, has anyone ever told you that you bear an uncanny resemblance to "meek, mild-mannered, Clark Kent?" I never heard any of the characters ask that.

As this thought came to me the other day, I saw that this unbelievable circumstance is repeated in the lives of many believers daily. Inwardly, they possess the power of the very Spirit of Almighty God, the power that can defeat Satan himself, bring Hell-bound men and women to eternal life, and countless other super things. Yet they go around in a false identity, unrecognizable to the world around them, who sees them only as meek, mild-mannered, spiritual "Clark Kents."

We, who are believers in Jesus, like the fictional Superman, have a power inside us that is not of this world. Superman's "power" supposedly came because he had been born under a red sun. We have been born under the red blood of the Son of God!

Christians, quit worrying that someone's going to recognize you for what you really are. After all, why did Superman need a secret identity? All it did was hamper his ability to do "super" things and wasted a lot of his "super" time. Don't you think it's time we took off our disguises and let God's power work and speak through us?????? We do have a power in us, by God's grace, that can also rescue those who are weaker (spiritually unable to help themselves). God did not equip us with that spiritual power to waste it on a secret identity. As the old hymn says, "There are souls to rescue, there are souls to save!" Take off your disguise and those fake glasses, then put on your real clothes; go to work rescuing them.

                     Ben