LW Baptist
Pastor
In Christ you have a brand new identity, a permanent one that lasts forever and can never change. “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s treasured people,” 1 Peter 2:9.
Asked who you are and you will probably answer with your name. You may also identify with your work, hobby or residence. Peter reminds us not to forget the most fundamental thing about us who trust Christ for salvation: “I am a Christian.”
In Christ you are not just forgiven, but given a new understanding of your relationship to every other Christian. That affects your thinking about yourself and what you are doing.
You are part of a body, a family, God’s people. Grace equips you to live the Christian life, but not on your own, as Pastor Paul Tripp explains.
Believers come from various places and backgrounds. But going to church is not like attending a concert, where you listen and leave without connecting with people. God’s Spirit intimately connects you to everyone in the church assembly, whether you know them or not. The Bible speaks of you as a body-part that benefits from and depends upon the others.
Are you living a private Christian life, or embracing your connection with every other brother and sister in Christ?
Especially when suffering hardships, we can become isolated within ourselves, forgetting who Christ called us to be by grace.
God’s grace has chosen us to belong no longer to Adam’s fallen race, but to Christ’s redeemed race. It is not about skin color, but a changed heart that is alive to God. The creator has chosen to place his eternal love on you forever. You can truly say, God loves me.
You have access to God. For thousands of years people could not enter the place of God’s glory. Now Christ has opened the way. We come to the father through Jesus the Son. We live in his presence and at any moment may tell him our heart-issues. All we are and have for the glory of our king.
We are a holy nation, devoted to God, separated together for him. Our language, location, ethnicity, economic level makes no difference. If you and I are in Christ, we are one. Are we living this way?
You and I as Christians are God’s treasured people. God has reached and wrapped his arms of grace around, taking us for his own, saying, You are mine. Maybe you have limited health, live in troubled times in this fallen world, with few affirming friends or accomplishments, even suffering, but you are his.
In unexpected trials, do you say, “I’m so glad I belong to God’s forever family.” We are his. He is our God.
Your forever-identity gives you a mission: “to proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” Tell of his excellent love, wisdom and strength in your life.
Remember that there has come a change for us all in Christ. “Once we were not a people; now we are. Once we had not received mercy; now we have,” 1 Peter 2:10. Mercy has changed everything for us. Tell others and celebrate your Lord.
By Rolland Coburn
