Identity in Christ – Kristi P. Powell

Deep Breath Before the Plunge

In one of my favorite books, The Return of the King, Gandalf, the venerable wizard, and Pippin, the playful but maturing Hobbit, arrive at a major city at the cusp of an enormous battle. Everyone is on edge, waiting for it to start. Gandalf calls it “the deep breath before the plunge”. I’ve been here several times in my life, on the edge of something completely life-changing.

Before I left for college, the first person in my close-knit family to leave home, move to another state, and complete a bachelor’s degree.

Before I moved overseas, to another country to learn a new, difficult language and be immersed in a new culture.

Before I moved back to America, not knowing in the least what was next.

Before I got married, choosing to trade singleness for lifelong partnership.

And now, I sit at the cusp of adopting four children, ages two to seven. I’ve taken lots of deep breaths before this plunge. These quiet moments of preparation before my “normal” is completely turned upside down are precious, and frightening at times.

In the weeks or months leading up to a big change, my heart has a tug of war with itself. I don’t like change, yet God’s given me an adventuring spirit that is willing to go into uncharted territory. All the what-ifs swirl around my head. I am a champion at worst-case-scenarios, which makes for great story-telling, but leads to anxiety in my personal life. It is all too easy to spiral down into fear and despair, long before any difficult thing actually happens. I’ve had moments of panic, wondering what in the world I was thinking when I made this decision. Surely you can’t handle this. It’s too hard. It’s too big. And too uncomfortable.

And while those things are true of every adventure I’ve embarked on, there is another truth that rings even truer. If God asked me to do this, he will be by my side supplying grace, strength, perseverance, and wisdom to accomplish it every step of the way. This is his plan, not mine. I’m not writing this story, he is. And I must trust the Author.

Even if nothing of the rest of my life is as I planned, expected or hoped, I will still cry out, “I have no good apart from [God]!” (Ps. 16:2). He is my never-changing Rock of Ages in the midst of the enormous, approaching change. Everything around me will look different in a few weeks, but he is and always will be the same.

Savior.

Provider.

Faith-giver.

Way-maker.

My Rock and fortress.

My God in whom I trust.

This leap of faith says nothing about me. I will never be able to look back and boast, “Look at all the amazing things I did.” No. I don’t have any faith in my own abilities. I am weak. I have and will fail. No, all the good in me is God’s work. He get’s all the credit and glory. I’m just a vessel, a clay jar in which he hid his surpassing treasure. He is worthy and he is with me. I’m ready for the plunge.

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”
1 Corinthians 4:7

A Seat at the Table

Friends of ours recently adopted a child from foster care. What a joy it was to walk with them through the process, from the time of placement when the child was 5 weeks old, to legal adoption at 2 years old.

Our church small group hosted a party at church to celebrate the adoption. We made a taco bar, decorated with green, blue, and dinosaurs, and had a huge cake. The guest of honor was oblivious through the festivities, adorably so.

When everyone was served, we made our plates and sat down at the table. The little guy crawled up in my lap, picked up my fork, and dug into my plate. I smiled, not just because I was clearly spoiling him, but because his little life was a beautiful illustration of what God does for us.

Adoption is one of the blessings of salvation through Jesus Christ. He not only forgives our sin through the cross, but transfers us into an adoptive, paternal relationship with him.

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship^.And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.
Romans 8:14-16

Because of the work of Jesus, we have a place at God’s table. He doesn’t leave us crumbs. We have a seat, and even have the freedom and relationship to crawl up in his lap. He doesn’t withhold any spiritual blessing from us because of the glorious blood of Jesus.

It’s not just a metaphorical table either. When God’s Kingdom is fully ushered in, we’ll eat the marriage feast of the Lamb in the presence of God.

“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
    the Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and exult
    and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
    and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself
    with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.”
Rev. 19:6a-9

Jesus secured our adoption and seat at the table. Praise him for his kindness and mercy in making us his daughters!

What God hasn’t Promised

During seasons of disappointment and struggle, we can take great comfort in the promises of God. He promises salvation through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He promised to do and finish the work of sanctification. He promised to never leave us through the deposit of the Holy Spirit.

However there are some things that aren’t promised in the Bible, specifically marriage and children. If you’re struggling with one of these, or know someone who is, you know the ache and brokenness of these unfulfilled desires.

In the Bible we are told that Jesus, Paul, and others were unmarried. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7 that marriage divides your affections between your spouse and God, but a single man or woman is only concerned about pleasing God.

There are multiple references to barren women (Sarai, Rebekah, Hannah, Elizabeth), and Prov. 30:16 even describes Sheol (hell) as a barren womb. However every Christian can reproduce spiritual children in making disciples. Paul refers to Timothy as a true child in the faith (1 Tim. 1:2).

Good Desires

Both marriage and children are blessings and good desires. Having a good desire is not a sin, but trying to fulfill that desire outside of God’s good boundaries, we fall into idolatry and sin.

C.S. Lewis said in Screwtape Letters “Never forget that when we are dealing with pleasure in it’s healthy and normal and satisfying form, we are, in a sense, on the enemy’s ground”. This fictional demon communicates to his underling an important truth: Satan can’t create pleasure and joy in and of himself, he can only twist God-given desires and pleasures.

Porn and adultery twists the pleasure and intimacy of sex created for marriage. Gluttony morphs enjoying God-given food with God-created tastebuds into worshipping our stomach. Making a spouse and/or children an idol twists these good gifts into destructors of our souls.

**What God has Promised**

Whenever anger begins to seep into our thoughts and prayers about an unfulfilled desire, we must immediately reevaluate our hearts. Anger and discontentment are a symptoms that our joy comes not from Christ, but from the things we expect him to give us.

If we desire a spouse or child more than God, we are idolators. Our hope must be fully and firmly planted in Christ Jesus. On our darkest, hardest days, we can fling all my weight on this promise of God:

“Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Romans 10:9

This is must be our ultimate anchor. This promise is sure and beautiful. Because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, I am saved from my sin and will spend eternity in a resurrected, sinless body with God.

We are also promised everything we need to holy and walk in faithfulness. What a gift!

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
2 Peter 1:3-4

Some may not marry. Some may remain childless. But there is coming a day when we will pass into the glory of God in the blink of an eye, and this light momentary suffering will fall away in the beautiful weight of glory that awaits those who follow Jesus (2 Cor. 4:16-18).

Photo by Tom Swinnen from Pexels

Guaranteed by Blood

Since I was fourteen, scribbling the first inklings of a story sparked by Tolkien’s magical tales, I dreamed of sharing my writing with the world. However the business world and publishing scared me. To this day I have no business savvy. I sent a couple chapters of a novel off to a literary agent when I was in high school and he was interested in working with me. I sent back a hasty refusal, afraid of misunderstanding the contract and getting duped.

As believers, we have the great blessing of knowing that we have a good God who is a faithful Father. We needn’t fear or worry about getting tricked or taken advantage of. He sets out his love and purpose clearly in Jesus Christ, giving us guarantees for life here and the eternity to come.

We only have these guarantees because of the life, death, and resurrection of his Son Jesus Christ. When Jesus became flesh and walked on earth, he lived a perfect life, not falling short of the glory of God like every other human being in history (Rom. 3:23). Jesus died the death we deserve and rose again to life, ascending to heaven and promising to return and usher his Kingdom in its fullness, bringing us into eternal life with him.

The Bible says that whoever believes in Jesus will not perish (John 3:16). We must confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord (surrendering our lives to him), and confess with our mouths that God raised him from the dead (Rom. 10:9). All who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved (Rom. 10:13). This is through grace and faith alone, not by works so that no one can boast (Eph. 2:8-9). This is good news for the world, the ultimate hope and joy for the believer!

Guaranteed

These guarantees are not exhaustive, nor in the order of importance. If you are a believer, read and take heart! Soak in these sweet and precious promises that were bought with the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

If you trust in Jesus, your sins are forgiven and you are saved. (John 3:16, Rom. 10:9, John 14:6, 1 John 1:9)

We are at peace with God. There is no more condemnation or shame because Jesus bore it all on the cross when he died. (Rom. 1:18, 8:1, Rom. 5:9 )

We have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, the very Spirit of God. He will never leave us nor be taken away. (John 14:26, Eph. 1:13)

God gives us everything we need to live a godly life here on earth, though perfection will only be attained when we reach heaven. (2 Peter 1:3, 2 Timothy 2:16-17, Phil. 1:6)

God is always faithful to his people and promises. (Ps. 25:10, Deut. 32:4, Ps. 111, Is. 25:1, Lam. 3:22-23, 1 Cor. 1:9, 1 Thess. 5:24, 2 Thess. 3:3, Heb. 10:23)

After we die, we will have eternal life with God. (John 14:2-3, Rev. 7:9-17, 2 Cor. 5:1, Phil. 3:20, 1 Peter 1:4)

Amen! Glorious truths!

Not Guaranteed

Sometimes we allow our own ideas wiggle in. These are some things that we as believers may think are guaranteed, but are not, according to God’s inerrant Word.

Spouse and children – Though they are sweet and amazing gifts from God, we aren’t promised these things. God ordains, gifts, and uses single people, both in seasons and lifetimes, for his glory. He opens and closes wombs in his sovereignty and goodness.

Salvation of our family members/children – The Bible doesn’t guarantee that all of our family members will be saved, even if they are raised in a Christian home. Salvation belongs to God alone.

Safety and Security – “The safest place to be is in God’s will” is not in the Bible. God sometimes brings us to dangerous, unsafe places to display his glory to the world. A sweet sister from India told me once that her village would’ve never heard the Gospel unless Christians were obedient and went to her remote, difficult to reach region to share the good news with her people. A believer’s hope is not in security systems, safe neighborhoods, or packing heat in our holsters. Our hope is that even when things get scary, God is bigger and has a plan to use it for his glory. We shouldn’t rush into dangerous places unwittingly, but we cannot shirk obedience merely because we don’t feel safe.

Comfort – Ah, one of the devil’s most subtle, effective weapons. We are not promised comfort in this world. Fullness of joy, great hope and peace, but not comfort.

Wealth and Prosperity – Jesus said it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God (Mark 10:25). God owns all things in this world, but he isn’t in the business of lining our pockets. While wealth is a gift and blessing to use for Kingdom of God, it is not a guarantee nor proof of great faith.

Health and Healing– The Gospels are full of accounts of Jesus healing people. One of his main public ministries was healing the masses, so much so that he had to slip away to get rest! We live in a fallen world with flawed bodies that get sick and broken. God instructs us to pray for healing, but it is not guaranteed, nor is lack of healing a lack of faith. We can have all the faith in the world that God can heal us, yet he may allow the ailment to linger for his sovereign purposes. In these times we must trust him for sustaining grace and the final healing that will come when God resurrects our bodies and we are made perfect, like Christ.

Being well liked – This is a tough one for me. I love people thinking well of me. We are told to love one another like ourselves (Matt. 22:39) and to live at peace with one another as far as it depends on us (Rom. 12:18), but we are not promised to be respected and liked. In fact, Jesus warns us that we will be be hated and persecuted by the world if we follow him. (John 15:18-20).

Results from Spiritual Labor – If I mix butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking soda, vanilla, and salt together, I get sugar cookies. Sweet, tangible results. Spiritual results are not so clear, nor are we guaranteed to see them this side of eternity. Yet God promises that he will reward the faithfulness of his people in heaven (Matt. 6:4,6,18, 10:42, Luke 6:35, Col. 3:23-24).

Thankful Hearts

I pray these guarantees (and the not guaranteed) lift your soul. We have busy lives, and its easy to skim over these sweet truths. I encourage you to read the verse references. Don’t take it from me! Bask in the beauty of God’s Word. May these guarantees fuel a heart of thankfulness for our Savior who died and rose again in order to secure them for us, for God’s great and marvelous glory!

“You’re not from around here…”

Down the street from where we studied Arabic, my friend and I stepped into a sandwich shop. It was our first week living in Africa and in the matters of language and culture, I functioned like a two year old. I rattled off my order for a tobouna shwarma (shwarma sandwich on a round bread) and a soda and paid the equivalent of $3 for the entire meal. I accepted the receipt and we stepped back to the wall to await our order.

None of the employees began preparing the food. The workers began to crack smiles and laugh with one another. Finally, someone told us that we needed to give our receipt to another employee behind the sandwich bar to start our order. Pink with embarrassment, we handed them over. This was not my last “dumb American” moment.

Being a foreigner means you stand out. You don’t talk the same. You don’t look the same. You view the world a little differently. If you follow Jesus, you too are a foreigner in this world.

“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.” 1 Peter 2:11

Peter addresses the church as sojourners (someone passing through) and exiles (people driven from their homeland). It is difficult to grasp that you’re a foreigner when life is comfortable, normal. On the other end of the spectrum, suffering and brokenness in our lives lead us to cry, “This can’t be all there is!”. The word of God makes it clear that our citizenship lies elsewhere.

“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” Philippians 3:20-21

How does being a sojourner affect how we live? If you truly live as a sojourner and exile, your life will look different than those in the world.

Time and Money

As sojourners, we don’t spend our lives scrabbling for possessions, comfort, safety, and experiences for happiness. Christ gives us fullness of joy here and now through the Holy Spirit, but this life is not the end. In our true home, there will be no more sin, no more toil, no more tears. Striving will cease and we will be wholly perfect, body and soul. We will be with God! Marantha! We lose affection for the world and its pleasures when we remember that we’re just passing through.

Loving our neighbors

Jesus said that loving our neighbors as ourselves is God’s second greatest commandment (Matt. 22:39). It’s tempting to focus on our own lives, building personal, efficient, comfortable castles. However God doesn’t want us to hunker down until our time on earth is over. In the Gospels we see Christ’s example of going out and loving people with his time, abilities, and giftings. In the end, he sacrificed himself for us while we were still sinners (Rom. 5:8). As sojourners, we know our time is limited. We love fully with our hearts wide open, giving freely and sharing the good news that gives us hope at every opportunity.

Family

Our families are a gift from God. The Bible says that a man shall leave his mother and father to marry (Eph. 5:31), that a husband and wife should live in sacrificial love for one another (Eph. 5:22-33), and if the Lord gives children (biological or otherwise), we are to raise them up in the ways of the Lord (Eph. 6:4). However, families aren’t ultimate things. They are made of eternal souls, but we are not eternal units (contrary to what the LDS church teaches). There is no marriage in heaven (Matt. 22:30) and the only mention of sons and daughters in heaven are those of God. The only eternal unit is the Church (Eph. 5:25-27, Rev. 19:6-9).

By no means does this give us permission to neglect our families! God provides the framework for how we should function in our families (see above), and even says a man who doesn’t provide for his family is worse than an unbeliever (1 Tim. 5:8)! However, as we place our hope, let it not be in picture perfect families. May it be firmly be planted in the saving work of Christ that will one day deliver us to our true home, with God and our global family, the Church.

Until then…

Fellow sojourner, let’s run together this race set before us (Heb. 12:1-2), not merely as residents of our cities, counties, states, countries, or continents, but as daughters of God and citizens of heaven, with eyes set only and fully on him.

Slaves and Sons

The Antebellum period of southern American history has always intrigued me. However the idyllic utopia of plantations and southern charm is riddled with the rot of slavery. Among the numerous injustices and abuses, masters and other white males in authority sexually exploited slave women. Women often bore children from these unions and their mixed race children joined their mothers as slaves. These men faced no consequences for the sexual abuse of their slaves and they enslaved their own sons and daughters. This is absolutely unthinkable! Yet in this broken, depraved world, a child called his father “master” and was denied the status and love of sonship.

Praise be to God, this is not our fate with our heavenly Father!

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, Romans 8:15-16

After teaching us that it is only through the power of the Spirit that we can kill our sin and find life (Romans 8:12-13), Paul roots us in our identity in Christ. This identity affects everything else in our lives, the way that we look at God, ourselves, and the world. Paul lays out these astounding truths:

We are no longer slaves. Our debts were paid (Romans 8:12) and our chains were loosed. If we are in Christ we are free from slavery to sin!
We’ve been adopted into God’s family. He didn’t have to adopt us. He could’ve saved us and left it there. However he chose to make us part of his family, giving us all the gifts, blessings, and inheritance of sonship, fellow heirs with Christ!
We can address him personally. This special relationship gives us access to God. A child scampers up into his father’s lap, fearless. Likewise, we don’t need rituals and special ceremonies to speak to the God of the universe. When we are in Christ, we have full and complete access through the blood of Jesus Christ.

Praise God! What a wonderful truth to face this broken world with. We are children of God, come what may.

Then Paul adds an uncomfortable condition.

…provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Romans 8:17-18

It’s easy to talk about the blessings of our walk with Christ, but we miss crucial truths when we don’t soak in every piece of his counsel. Paul says that as children of God, we are heirs with Christ, provided that we suffer with him in order that we may be glorified with him.

Often we skim over this verse because it makes us uncomfortable. We don’t like the fact that suffering is part of the Christian life. We want ease. We want comfort. But we are not made for these things! We are made to display the breathtaking glory of God that shines through the darkest of suffering. Paul reminds us that any suffering we may face this side of eternity cannot compare to the glory that awaits us with God. All this toil, heartache, and tears, will melt away in the dazzling, glorious light of God when we see him face to face.

Sisters, suffering will come in this life. Don’t be afraid of it. Embrace the perfect counsel and sufficient promises of God and trusty that the same One who raised Christ from the grave is with you always, to the end of the age (Matt. 28:20).