When our kids were much younger, we would take the occasional trip to Chuck E. Cheese. Our general rule there was that we would play the games, we would hang out, we might get something to drink, but we would never order food because we knew there was a limited amount of time we could spend there. And that was because of Chuck E. 

We knew that it was only a matter of time before Chuck came out from the backroom and make his rounds. And while other kids would stand in line to give Chuck E. a hug or fist bump, our kids were terrified of him. I can sympathize – it is, after all, a giant rat. 

And not just a giant rat. A giant rat in a restaurant. Around your food. It’s the kind of thing you would have thought wouldn’t make it beyond the marketing room – that someone might have raised their hand and said, “Are we sure this is the best mascot for what we are trying to accomplish here?”

So yes, I can understand our kids’ hesitations. But on the other hand, that’s not actually a giant rat. I don’t know Chuck actually was, but at some point, that person was going to take off the rat costume. They weren’t really Chuck E.; they were only dressed up like him.

Silly illustration, but the point is that there is a great difference between dressing up like someone and actually being someone. And this is where we start to learn about sanctification, or the process by which we become more like Jesus. The core question at hand is this:

Who are we really? What is our identity? And that question matters a lot, because it determines whether we are actually Christians or whether we are only playing at being Christians.

To answer that question, we should recognize there is a distinct pattern represented in the New Testament, and that pattern can be summarized using three words: Believe. Become. Behave.

True life in Christ begins when someone hears the message of the gospel, knows their need, and sees Jesus as supremely valuable. That person turns from their self-lordship and embraces the new life in Christ. They believe the gospel, and they are once and for all born again into Him:

“When you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed in Him, you were also sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. He is the down payment of our inheritance, for the redemption of the possession, to the praise of His glory” (Ephesians 1:13-14).

When someone believes the gospel, everything is changed. We have the tendency to sell the implications of believing the gospel short, seeing it as only a question of where a person will spend eternity. But the response to the gospel does more than determine a person’s trajectory; it determines a person’s identity. It does more than change where you’re going, it changes who you’re becoming:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

When we believe the gospel, we are made new. New identity. New desires. New goals. New Lord. New everything. Though we are made new on the inside, the Holy Spirit continues to invest His transformative power in us so that our outer actions catch up with our inner identity. God gives us a crown, as co-heirs with Christ, that we grow into over the course of time.

Sanctification happens as our behavior falls into line with our identity. Paul’s theology, the “believe, become, behave” model, recognizes that we have already become something new in Christ. We are already different. That means that the behavior part is not an effort to become something different; it’s about recognizing and living out the newness that is already in us. 

The real us? The true us? We are the children of God. We aren’t just acting like God’s children; we have become them. That means whenever we choose to live in accordance with His will we are living out who we have already become. And when we choose the way of sin? That’s when we put on the mask. 

God’s call to become more like Jesus is, then, a call to grow into what you’ve already become. Stop wearing the mark and embrace who you truly are.