Last night I had a brief conversation with one of my friends from debate. It was just a casual conversation about his public school sports teammates, but one little side comment he made struck me, caught me like an unsuspecting fish going for the bait. "If I hadn't been homeschooled, or hadn't been in the family I'm in...I..." Well, the rest was fine too, but that little statement just did a Hallelujah Chorus in my mind. If I hadn't. Wow.
So much theological meatiness to jump on there. So much philosophical questioning. So much certainty of the present. So much to praise God about.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Let's start with the word, "If." The Bible is pretty clear that God is sovereign over every teensy tiny little detail of the whole universe, but he paradoxically acts this way without being a robot operator. Most Christians agree that God knows everything that will go on, but doesn't mandate it. I understand how those conclusions are reached (believe me, I used to think something pretty close to that), but let's dissect that a bit. If God knows everything (which we all agree on), and God is sovereign (which we usually agree on), then God cannot possibly have known everything without having some hand in it. That's the most basic academic argument for God's sovereignty, other than "the Bible says so" (which, by the way, it does).
If that's true, then you and I are not random. In fact, the Bible *clearly* indicates that we were designed for a purpose, something the Westminster Catechism summarizes when it says that "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever." Not only does God have a purpose on earth, he has an eternal purpose: that every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the God the Father. In a very glorious and mysterious way, God has already determined who will spend all eternity with him. That is, anyone who puts their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, Paul made it clear that anyone who does so does it only because of the quickening of the Spirit. That is, God chooses to wake you from being dead in your sins to being alive in Christ. Nothing you do can make it happen: only God in his glorious mercy.
Whoa. Mind. Blown.
If God really has this great and awesome purpose for you, though, then he has not placed you in your circumstances randomly. You are not just the child of random Joe: you are firstly the child of the one living God, and secondly the child of the earthly parents God has bestowed you with. Whatever your situation, God has placed you there for a reason.
So now I'm guessing I've pretty well clarified that "if" isn't possible. But it gives those kind of statements so much greater meaning. If you don't follow, allow me to expound.
Since "if" is not possible, it means that you are in exactly the right situation for you right now. I'm not saying it's perfect: God's said that the world will not, and by God's very nature of righteousness cannot be perfect until he returns to set the world right. However, you and I can rest in the knowledge that God has a big plan for us, and that he chose this for us for a reason. Take my friend. He's homeschooled, he's from a great Christian family. God did not place him in some other family. He is not in a public school. If God had him in those circumstances, his plans would have been just as good and holy and righteous. But God placed him here. And that means that he gets to do what God is uniquely calling him to do.
In my own life, this is a very relevant issue. Sometimes I struggle with comparison of my circumstances to other friends' circumstances. Or I just wonder "what if." But that God placed me in the Paulton family, with the exact friends I have, the exact knowledge I have, the exact skills I have, right here in Colorado is amazing. It doesn't mean I won't go on and do other things: it means that I can go on and do those other things, because I was uniquely designed to do them.
There's a reason that Paul compared the Church to a body.
2 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves[d] or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts,[e] yet one body.
21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.Maybe you are called to be a doctor. A pastor. A missionary. A politician. A writer. A teacher. An engineer. A musician. An artist.
27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 28 And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? 31 But earnestly desire the higher gifts.
Whatever you're called to do, the way God uses you will be unique. But here's the cool thing: regardless of what you're called to do specifically, we're all called to do one thing generally: proclaim God's great name, and make it famous in all the earth. Probably one of my favorite verses of all time, one I quote to myself multiple times daily, is 1 Peter 2:9 --
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may declare the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.That's you and me. This is where we talk about the next part. If we were. Here's where it get's hard. The book of Romans puts it better than any other: before Christ, we're dead in our sins. That means that all the people out there who don't know the love of the Lord are dead. Corpses. Rotting souls. That sin that you see is just the maggot coming out. I don't want to be grotesque, but that's what deadness amounts to. Total lifelessness. Because Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.
We may not know who God has chosen, but we know that he has chosen us to proclaim his glory. Peter isn't the only one who got this. Listen to Jesus himself in Matthew 28:
17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[b] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Some doubted, but then he said that he has all authority. And with his authority we are to go out and preach the Gospel to our friends, our neighbors, our coworkers, our world. When light pierces the darkness, it is a dramatic thing.
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.Can you imagine if you were born in a different circumstance? Maybe. But the thought of that drives us to an even greater realization: that we were born in the circumstances we were born in. That we serve the God we serve, and that we are his chosen people. Out of all the people he could have chosen, of the option to kill us all out or create other beings, God chose to live and die and live again for US. You. Me.
Even those in different circumstances are there by God's divine will, perhaps just so that He can use us as light, because HE is God.
And, even though this post is titled, "Who You Are," I think you'll have to agree with me that this is more about who God is, and who we get to be as a part of it.
Relish in God's goodness, friends, and celebrate your brand-new identity in Christ!
Soli Deo Gloria!
~Meridian
