INTRODUCTION: Throughout the next two weeks, Time With God will be exploring who we are in Christ. Our prayer is that you will grow in confidence and hope as we unpack biblical truth about who God has made us to be. Please note that there will be no Digging Deeper section.
GETTING STARTED
Chosen. Holy. Beloved. Beautiful, promising adjectives, all three. But what do they mean? Let’s see:
Chosen: Picked out, selected to obtain salvation through Christ.
Holy: A saint. The Greek word hagios (holy) comes from the Greek word hagos, meaning, “an awful thing.” Interesting.
Beloved: To welcome, be fond of, love dearly, and be contented with.
So, allow me to sum up: We are picked for this moment in time and endowed with salvation through Jesus Christ. He takes our rebellious, awful tendencies and, with flagrant intention, sets us apart as warmly welcomed, thoroughly enjoyed saints to be doted upon.
- Ponder for a little longer the implications of being chosen, holy, and dearly loved.
READ THE WORD: COLOSSIANS 3:12-13 (ESV)
12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
English Standard Version, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
RESPOND TO GOD
It’s easy to blow past the reminders of who we are in an effort to get to the crux of what the verse above is saying. Somehow, even if it requires sacrifice, we’re much more comfortable being told what to do rather than being told who we are. We approach “doing” in the same way we approach most games we play—with a scorecard. If I do what the Bible says, I’m winning; if I don’t, then I’m losing and need to get my head in the game. This is not the essence of the gospel. The great gift and mystery of salvation is: We Are. Jesus already did everything for us.
It pleases God when our active response to verses like these springs from a grateful, dependent awareness: We Are chosen (of all the people in all the world), We Are holy (even when we’ve acted awful), and We Are beloved (not micro-managed). Otherwise, life just continues to be one big game full of winners and losers, and if by our counting we happen to be winning, we feel a bit justified judging those who aren’t. And the vicious cycle from which God has already rescued us goes on.
When we let go of doing, doing, doing, and cling for dear life to the truest identity we have in Jesus, it will transform our approach to the Christian life. We’ll no longer have to, but rather get to put on compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, and so on. And love that flows from a secure place of knowing who we are, my friends, is what changes the world.
- Ask God to remind you throughout your day that, in Christ, you are chosen, holy, and dearly loved.