Prayer for Divine Guidance

Heavenly Father, I ask that your Holy Spirit bless and enlighten me as I read, reflect and rest in the boundless riches of salvation that Christ Jesus has won! Abba Father, draw me closer into the Divine Dance with You, Your Son, and Holy Spirit to continually transform my life here on earth to taste life with you in Heaven! Amen.

Reflection

Do you ever struggle with identity issues, with knowing who you really are? Do you sometimes wrestle with self-image, with your purpose and place in the world? Chapters in our life journey, such as career changes, becoming a parent, divorce, illness, trauma, and retirement all add up to how we think about ourselves.

But have you ever asked God who He says you are? Have you ever asked God your true identity? What if the truest thing about you is not anything that has happened to you or anything you have done, but what God says about you?

Ephesians 1 has been a well-worn page in my Bible across the years; I read and re-read to be reminded of who I really am. In Ephesians, I discover that I am not my accomplishments or my failures. I am not who people say I am or even who I say I am. I am who God says I am.

The opening verses of Ephesians pull back the veil, offering a glimpse of God’s eternal plan to bless us in Christ and through Christ to adopt us as His beloved children. The following verses reveal God having purposed from eternity to act in Christ Jesus and to adopt us into the life and love of the Trinity:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.” (Ephesians 1:3-6)

We see in these verses that God’s love for us transcends time and is unaffected by our worth or unworthiness. We are His beloved children!

Note in this passage that the phrase, “in Christ”, is at the heart of God’s saving work in our lives. Paul uses “in Christ” or similar phrases such as “in him” or “in the Lord” approximately 160 times in his letters. While our lives were once “in Adam” with its guilt and shame (Romans 5:12-21; 1 Corinthians 15:22), we are now “in Christ”. Being “in Christ” means virtual oneness with the life of God. It is our sharing Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension to glory (Romans 6:4-5; Ephesians 2:5-6). This might not be perceived in how we feel, but it is how God sees us, the truest thing about us: we are “in Christ”. The divine dance of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit has adopted us into that communion.

These verses reveal that our adoption is accomplished “through Jesus Christ”. In boundless love the Son of God humbled Himself to take on our humanity so we could share His Sonship. The Creator became a creature, the Infinite became finite, to raise us into the life of God. Paul elsewhere notes that “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son…so that we might receive adoption as children” (Galatians 4:4-5). C. S. Lewis concludes: “The Son of God became man to enable men to become sons of God.” (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)

Just think about this! Can you imagine! Having been adopted into the life of God, the Holy Spirit has come to live within us, crying out, “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:6). We are “in Christ” and united into His relationship with His Father. We are not just servants or second-class citizens, but God’s beloved children. God regards us as sons and daughters alongside Jesus, the Son of God!

What Christ Jesus is by His eternal nature we become by grace. “When Jesus presented himself before the face of the Father, he presented us also before God, so that we are already accepted of God in him once and for all.” (Thomas Torrance, Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ)

Jesus brings us into His relationship with His Father, revealing to us His knowledge of His Father’s heart, inviting us to live in His own assurance of the Father’s love. Ask God who you are, and He will tell you that you are His beloved, adopted child. Ask God who He is, and He will tell you that He is everlasting love.