The Person of You, B.C.

…grace and truth came to be through Jesus Christ. ~ John 1:17b NASB

The Person of You, B.C.

This has been a month of September like I, personally and we, corporately have not experienced before. Some time ago, I left off writing posts in the Spirit of Truth & Grace category. Not because there wasn’t more stirring, but because I follow the Leader of all leaders, the Lord Jesus Christ. I’m not ashamed to identify as His sheep, since my life is a living witness of Jesus’ gift of real (on this side of the Veil) and eternal (forever with Him) life.

Each of us is either The Person of You, B.C. (before Christ) who now, after Christ has come alive to our Person, can say with God-confidence that, “I am His beloved, pastured with Him, loved and cared for by that Great Shepherd of the sheep.” Or we love the Spirit of grace, but a Truth-telling Jesus is not warmly welcomed in our personal wheelhouse. Truth-telling becomes a tool wielded at others, not the piercing for cleansing one’s heart.

Jesus answered, “I told you, but you don’t believe. Everything I have done has been authorized by my Father, actions that speak louder than words. You don’t believe because you’re not my sheep. My sheep recognize my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them real and eternal life. They are protected from the Destroyer for good. No one can steal them from out of my hand. The Father who put them under my care is so much greater than the Destroyer and Thief. No one could ever get them away from him. I and the Father are one heart and mind.” – John 10:25-30 MSG

The Person of You, B.C.(K)

My life and yours may be largely hidden from the masses – unlike Charlie Kirk’s.¹ But know this: our lives are not unseen by the Father. He is the One who keeps an accounting, from every hair on our head to what we really believe and then act upon. The key truth Jesus declared above is, “I know My sheep, and they follow Me.”

I woke up this Monday morning at the end of September to a question for ‘the masses’ ringing in my mind. “Who did you want to be “before Charlie Kirk”? This is a serious question for baby and grown believers, alike.

Why in God’s green pasture does there remain this tendency, like sheep run amok, to play follow the leader?

There is so much more to the unpacking of who you are that will only be accomplished while hidden in Christ, not hiding behind a t-shirt declaring someone other than who you are. Young? I get it. More mature? I do not.

The Essence of Charlie or The Fragrance of Christ?

There is a picture behind what’s gotten my pot stirred up again. Of course, it came across my social media feed.

Charlie Kirk was not with Jesus for more than 72 hours, if that, and t-shirts had already been printed and distributed. The picture I saw was of a massive group of mostly young people. From the front of the photo to reaching way behind in waves, they wore matching white t-shirts that read “I am Charlie Kirk.” I did not applaud. Instead, I felt that familiar gut twist of the Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Grace living and breathing in me. I know what it is to sense Holy Spirit’s grieving and Abba Father saying, “ENOUGH already.”

Do you really want to stand before the Lord one day giving all the human reasons you made a great Charlie Kirk?

We all have been given one life to live; ours, not someone else’s. That is true for me, for you, and Charlie Kirk. None of us live our one life other than by God’s grace. If we’re still breathing, God’s grace is our oxygen. We won’t need grace when we are in His presence. To be fragranced with God’s grace now is a precious gift. How then shall we receive Him so that others know we have been with Him? It’s linked to what then shall we say.

But Wait, There’s More

The pot’s just coming up to temp, bear with me. For every statement made – and there are gazillions – that constitutes a piece of truth surrounding Charlie Kirk, his family, and his mission, I am not attacking that piece of truth. What I do see is a larger panorama with a glaring omission. And that is what has my spiritual temp rising.

For all the talk and preaching about “the Kingdom” (of God, presumably) in today’s climate and culture, I find myself in near-constant head-shaking mode (picture a Nancy bobblehead) over the seeming King gone MIA.

Do you know The King of the Kingdom? If you do, are you pointing others toward Him as The Truth that sets them free? Or are you pointing toward other humans saying, “There you go, there’s your role model!”

I will tell you this. Please don’t ever point to me as a role model. I was never a model, and I am not your role to play. I don’t want to play you, either. To those close and those who look from a distance, you wouldn’t want to have lived our marriage. Nor do my husband and I desire that you live anything but your own – with Christ. He is the Everything in all our days that we have journeyed from childhood and the altar of “I do” to 49 years now.

Furthermore, if you are convinced Charlie’s model of family and marriage is what yours should be, I urge you to get alone with the Father and ask Him what He carries in His heart of purpose and design for you and yours. If it resembles Charlie’s model, great; along with my prayerful hope that yours will be long and full of fruit that lasts.

All That’s Debatable

There isn’t much on this human plane that isn’t being debated these days. And I’m not ignorant enough to think that what I’ve written, and you’ve just read doesn’t land in the category of all that’s debatable. It is your prerogative to not agree, to agree with some but not all, to say I didn’t expand it enough (I surely did not; it’s a blog post not a book), to take a critical-thinking stance, or entertain a critical spirit. But here’s God’s grace embedded in the Spirit of Truth: you don’t have to answer to me, thank God. But we will give an account to Him.

I hope you will be found saying from your freed-up heart, along with me – “I am not Charlie Kirk, but I am …”

~ Gracefully Free

¹ (Wikipedia) On September 10, 2025, Charlie Kirk, an American right-wing political activist, was assassinated while addressing an audience on the campus of Utah Valley University (UVU) in Orem, Utah, United States. The outdoor event was the first stop of the Fall 2025 season for the American Comeback Tour, a speaking and debate series planned by Turning Point USA, a conservative organization that he co-founded.

Photo Credit: Pexels-Pixabay-33783 │ ©2025 Nancy C. Bentz – Author’s permission granted to forward this devotional piece in its entirety, including this copyright line.