GOD'S OWN PEOPLE - PART 2
FRIDAY 29 APRIL 2022
As God's own people, emphasis is placed on our identity in Christ because of our new birth which gives us a divine existence and an access to a renewed mindset fashioned or patterned after the mind of Christ, with glorious impact on our Christian lifestyle. Also I'm going to shed more light on "mercy" which strengthens the fabric of our new identity and existence in Christ.
Reference: 1 Peter 2:9 Amplified Bible (AMP) "Once you were NOT A PEOPLE [at all], but now you are GOD'S PEOPLE; once you had NOT RECEIVED MERCY, but now you have RECEIVED MERCY."
Being named as God's own people means that we stand in Christ as miraculous testimony of God's peculiar predestination. We are God's own people now! Why? This is because our identity is now found and defined in Christ. What a profound consciousness of fixed inward knowledge that we breathe in and out. Ephesians 3:12 reads, "Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God's presence" (NLT). By this identity in Christ, our faith emboldens us with sufficient courage to freely and openly approach God as His precious people.
How did our new identity come about? In this same Petrine epistle, Peter wrote, "All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation" (1 Peter 1;3 NLT). Beloved through His great mercy which we've received, we were born again as God raised Christ from the dead. In other words, we were raised from "NOT A PEOPLE" to "GOD'S PEOPLE" which is our new identity. Obviously "Not A PEOPLE" needed to exist in order to be called God's own people. So mercy played its role in God's plan by raising "NOT A PEOPLE" up through Christ's dead and resurrection, as born again Christians (New creation). Did you get it? Praise God!
In Christ Jesus, mercy triumphed over judgement. Mercy now addresses us as God's chosen people, holy and dearly beloved, which means that we are replete with glorious factory of identity in Christ (see Colossians 3:12). Mercy unlocked the passageway to God's presence and gave us eternal ingress. Now what do we do with our new identity in Christ? We must cultivate its consciousness as a new culture by renewing our minds with the Word. By new culture, I mean that we have been called to a new way of life. To make it simple, think of it this way: Every "set of people" in a society has a sustained ideology, an ingrained mentality, a deep-rooted custom and social behaviour, owing to their ethnic background and cultural rights.
Therefore as God's own people, we have a responsibility to renew our minds by unlearning the old sin-controlled culture which was crucified with Christ, and reshaping our thought pattern to correspond with our new life and identity in Christ. In this way, we cultivate an eternal perspective and live by it as a tradition. Stay tuned for part 3 of this topic. Shalom!
Scripture Reading - Hoses 2:3; Psalm 25:6; Romans 9:25; Hebrews 10:19-22.
Guided Prayer: Heavenly Father, I've found the Scriptures as a treasured wisdom and knowledge in which I derive my true identity. As your most prized possession and a chosen race, meditating on the verities of my identity in Christ is a sweet and effective way to live a heavenly-minded life and keep my mind and continual focus stayed on you. Day after day, I pant for your Word and I remain forever grateful for your mercy and the condensed mentality of Christ being constantly formed in me, in Jesus' Name, Amen!
