Hiding

Christianity is an incarnational faith. God instills faith in God's people in order that they may be lights in the world and the salt of the earth with every fiber of being. I wouldn't call this "purpose" as much as I would call it "shape". We are shaped, molded, and formed into what God wants us to be. The form we are given is that of Christ. As we receive (not accept) Christ in Word, water, and meal, we are given what God desires to make of us.

Of course, as everything else, we can cover up or hide what we've been given. We can make Christ into personal property. Oftentimes we do just that. But that's not the reason we are given Christ. He doesn't hide in us. We hide with him in God (Colossians 3:3). We are God's property completely. Our entire makeup is lovingly submitted in Christ so that our lives are no longer ours. Christ is our life. This is our identity. Everything that we are and do are designed to flow from the sacred reality of being new creations.

As I mentioned in the last post, we often ask what we are supposed to do. That inquiry is secondary because it seeks to establish identity by virtue of works. Our primary inquiry is: whose am I? This is where our true identity derives. We are Christ's. And Christ is God's. By virtue of Baptism we have died and have risen with Christ. The life we live is not ours. The life we live we live by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for us (Galatians 2:20).

Who we perceive ourselves to be can be quite different from who we are actually. I pray that we more and more perceive ourselves to be who we are actually in Christ Jesus.