Belief and Behavior…Transformed by Christ!
As kids we joked around and said, you can pick your friends, you can pick your noses, but you can’t pick your friends’ noses. Yes, I know that is a bad mental picture, I teach middle schoolers, what can I say. But there is a connotation here as I read how we don’t get to pick who comes into God’s Kingdom because of the work of Jesus Christ who tore down the wall between EVERYONE and God. We do not get to choose who becomes a part of God’s family! We should live eternally grateful that God picked us!
Read and be encouraged. Read and be grateful. Read and be more accepting of overs in the family God has chosen for His own.
Ephesians 2, The Message
14-15 The Messiah has made things up between us so that we’re now together on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders. He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance. He repealed the law code that had become so clogged with fine print and footnotes that it hindered more than it helped. Then he started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.
16-18 Christ brought us together through his death on the cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility. Christ came and preached peace to you outsiders and peace to us insiders. He treated us as equals, and so made us equals. Through him we both share the same Spirit and have equal access to the Father.
19-22 That’s plain enough, isn’t it? You’re no longer wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You’re no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home. He’s using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is building. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he’s using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.
What do we learn?
–WE ALL BELONG to Christ who set us free to come to God, believe on His Name and become part of His family!
–We are all equal. We all have a deep need to belong. Belong to Christ!
–We all get a fresh start because of Jesus’ work on the Cross.
Think about this all day long and be blessed…I belong to Christ!
Dear Heavenly Father, No matter who we are, or what we have done, if we believe, we belong. We are Your created. We belong when we follow the Way, believe the Truth and live Life abundantly with You in us. Thank you for meeting our deepest human need…to belong. Continue to teach us, Lord. Thank you for encouraging us along the way.
In Jesus Name, Amen
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