The Cosmic Wonder of Being in Christ

Dear new believer,

Welcome to his family! There is rejoicing in heaven over what has happened in your heart and life!! I rejoice with the angels, archangels and all the company of heaven! It is exciting to share God’s love with you.

When I first heard and believed, so long ago, I was told that new believers must do certain things to get settled in the Christian life. “You should read your Bible and pray every day,” I was told, “find a Bible-believing church and join it, and share your testimony with others.” It made sense: if I was to grow, I needed to apply myself to being Christian and doing Christian things. Later I was informed that the list of things Christians should do is longer, including being nicer, and trying harder and doing more for God – like tithing, helping the poor, and teaching Sunday school! Especially tithing.

While all this was well-intentioned church advice, it took me many years to learn that God doesn’t want me doing anything before he wants me. You see, the gospel that changed your heart and mine is not dependent on our faithfulness, but on God’s faithfulness. I wish that someone had taken me aside back then to explain who I am in Christ and the cosmic wonder of being “in Christ.” The church put on me a heavy weight of duty before they explained to me my new identity. In Christ the most important issue that is settled is our identity, who we are, and how the Christian life then becomes a matter of living into who we are in Christ. It’s not about entering onto the treadmill of pietism and moral improvement, but heart-felt gratitude for our new identity as God’s adopted children. We don’t have to become the kind of person God will accept because we are  already accepted! “Being” leads to “living,” of course, but there’s no living apart from being that doesn’t soon become a drudgery. John Steinbeck (East of Eden) was right, “And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”

Coming to see Christianity from your identity in Christ, rather than your performance for him, is what I missed for many of my early Christian years. So, this is my advice to you as a new believer: don’t get being and doing backwards. Don’t do a thing until you have time to contemplate and appreciate what was done for you in Christ. Go on a long retreat, take long walks, to “behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us that we should be called the children of God” ( 1 Jn 3). That “there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8). That nothing in all of creation can separate us from the love of God (Rom 8) because “we have been blessed in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Eph 1).

And once the “it is finished” message is the song that runs in the background of your life, then the disciplines of the Christian life will be a joy. It’s not moral progress that makes you a Christian, but God’s love. Start then by resting in God’s approval of you. This is your new identity. You are his beloved and he delights over you with gladness!

In Christ,

Chuck