Birgitta, Emerald, and I took an interesting road trip last weekend resulting in the car odometer gaining 1236 miles. Leaving Michigan, we headed west through Illinois, across the Mississippi River, and into Iowa to Birgitta’s old college. After depositing her and Emerald to visit friends there, I continued west to connect with friends I hadn’t seen in 10 years.

Driving through landscape reputed to be the richest farmland in the whole world, my journey ended at the home of Becky and Fred, a couple Nate and I met in the 1970’s when we began raising children together. Eventually they moved back to Fred’s childhood home and farm, where he and his brother have been successfully raising cattle (2500 at a time) and farming thousands of acres to feed them, for 36 years.

As we toured the farm from the comfort of an air-conditioned mini-van, I asked endless questions and occasionally got out to get up close and personal with farm residents. The cattle have pretty faces and come in all colors: black, brown, gold, red, beige, white and multicolored. Several of the stock pens, though, held only black. “How come?” I said.

“Those are Black Angus,” Fred said, “certified to have Angus in their blood lines. They bring a higher price, and their meat is marbled to taste better.”

As we drove past a cattle chute he explained how the cattle march one after another through the chute into the livestock truck that hauls them to the packing house. But before they can morph into prime rib and hamburger, each has to be recorded, the Angus a different price than the rest.

I loved my farm tour, and our time ran out before my questions did. Later, while diving east to pick up Birgitta and Emerald, I thought about those Angus cattle. It would be easy to look at any of the cattle and say, “Oh, there’s an Angus,” but of course that wouldn’t always be accurate.

The Bible says something similar. One person might be an authentic Christian and another a “hypocrite” (Jesus’ word). They might look and sound the same but as Jesus said about the imposters, “Their hearts are far from me.”

So how do we tell who’s who? The Bible says, “Test them. If they acknowledge Jesus as fully man and fully God, they’re bona fide believers. If they’re promoting a different philosophy, they’re counterfeits.” (1 John 4:1-6)

Just as the Angus and non-Angus get sorted at the packing house, God will one day sort the rest of us, too. And when he does, I want to be sure I really am who I think I am.

Jesus replied, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’ ” (Mark 7:6-7)