{"id":1865,"date":"2022-08-08T09:36:36","date_gmt":"2022-08-08T13:36:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=1865"},"modified":"2022-08-08T09:37:20","modified_gmt":"2022-08-08T13:37:20","slug":"in-christ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2022\/08\/08\/in-christ\/","title":{"rendered":"In Christ"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Throughout the month of August, we\u2019re taking a close look at 23 verses of the New Testament.  They comprise Ephesians chapter one, which paints one of the Bible\u2019s most comprehensive pictures of what it means for ordinary people to be \u201cin Christ.\u201d  <\/em>
 
About a decade ago, on my way to a national gathering of pastors, my connecting flight took me through Raleigh, North Carolina.
 
I had about 90 minutes before the next leg of my journey, so I walked down to the departure gate just to make sure things were in order.
 
That\u2019s when I saw the sign.  At the check-in counter there was a prominent notice that said, \u201cAsk about our upgrades to first class.\u201d  I thought, Wow.  That sure would be nice.  I grabbed a bite to eat, read a few pages from a book, then came back about 45 minutes later.  There sat my friend Steve, a fellow pastor who had reservations on the very same flight.  He said, \u201cHey, guess what?  I\u2019m flying first class the rest of the way\u2026for free.\u201d
 
\u201cYou\u2019re kidding!\u201d I said.  \u201cHow did you pull that off?\u201d  \u201cWell,\u201d said Steve.  \u201cDo you see that sign over there \u2013 the one that says, \u2018Ask about our upgrades to first class\u2019?  I asked.  I just got the last seat available.\u201d
 
Now I want you to know that I was truly happy for my 6\u20194\u201d friend.  But as I shoehorned myself into my spacious and elegant coach seat, and looked around and noticed that every single seat in our section of the plane was occupied, I had to wonder:  Why didn\u2019t any of these people ask about the upgrade to first class? 
 
For that matter, why didn\u2019t I<\/u><\/em> ask?
 
To tell you the truth, I think I assumed that the sign just had to be for somebody else.  How nice it was to be flying with an airline that upgrades people as an act of grace.  But I chose not to ask.  Such grace couldn\u2019t be for me.  How tragic it would be to go through life knowing that a God of grace rules the cosmos \u2013 but to convince ourselves that feasting on such grace is only for others.
 
Today we arrive at verse six of the first chapter of Ephesians, where Paul makes it clear that God\u2019s grace is the centerpiece of his actions on our behalf: \u201cto the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.\u201d <\/strong><\/em>
 
Grace is the Bible’s one-word description of something that takes many words to explain.  Grace means that God\u2019s presence, God\u2019s love, and God\u2019s forgiveness cannot be earned.  They cannot be deserved.  They can only be received. 

In the words of Bible commentator Klyne Snodgrass, \u201cGrace is the Judge of the universe asking criminals to sit down to a meal in his home.”

This idea, however, goes so strongly against the grain of human instinct that virtually every religion on earth turns out to be a set of spiritual self-improvement strategies.  God will favor us if we are good, or if we perform, or if we love God first. 

But the New Testament turns all that on its head.  According to Jesus, God<\/u> loves<\/u><\/em> us<\/u><\/em>.  Period.   And right now he\u2019s making the offer of a lifetime.  Deal or No Deal<\/em>:  You can be in a transforming relationship with God in which he provides all the power, all the meaning, and all the resources \u2013 if you will abandon all your efforts to win God over according to some kind of performance plan.
 
That\u2019s grace.
 
Notice God\u2019s delivery system for this extraordinary gift: \u201c\u2026which he has freely given us in the One<\/em> he loves.\u201d 
 
Bible students have long noticed Paul\u2019s affection for the phrase \u201cin Christ\u201d (or equivalents like \u201cin him,\u201d \u201cin the Lord,\u201d or here, \u201cin the One\u201d).  It appears a remarkable 83 times in his letters, including 27 times in Ephesians alone. 
 
What does it mean?
 
If you have thrown in your lot with Christ, then you have a dual citizenship.  You live in a particular community, state, and nation.  But you also live in him<\/em>.  Knowing Jesus is like living in another country even while you live in your same old house on your same old street. 

Every time you are in Starbucks<\/em> you are also \u201cin Christ\u201d \u2013 and that should make a difference regarding how you place your order, how you relate to the barista, and how you demonstrate God\u2019s reality to the next person in line.

But the meaning of Paul’s phrase plunges even deeper than that.  Living \u201cin Christ\u201d can be described as a state of being.  Think of the ways that our thoughts, actions, and emotions are often dominated by other states of perception. 
 
Imagine what it\u2019s like, for instance, to be \u201cin debt.\u201d  Your financial condition feels like a burden you lug around wherever you go.  Every purchase, every decision, every choice of this dinner entr\u00e9e over that one is shaded by the realization that it will be hard to open your next VISA bill.  Your debt has become a part of your life, and it goes to bed with you every night when you try to fall asleep. 
 
Then there\u2019s being \u201cin pain.\u201d  It\u2019s easy to take mobility for granted \u2013 right up to the moment we suffer a back injury.  That\u2019s when we realize that our back is indispensable for getting dressed, reaching for a box of cereal, getting into the car, and picking up a child.  Everything hurts.  All the time.  Or how about a toothache?  A painful tooth goes with us to work, to the movies, and to a summer cookout.  Being in pain means our attention is continually diverted to that source of agony.
 
How about being \u201cin love\u201d?  Life is beautiful.  Every problem feels solvable.  Hope abounds.  Tomorrow will be better than today, and the next day will be better still.  Being in love is the fountain of youth and the elixir of happiness.
 
But of course it doesn\u2019t last.
 
Being \u201cin Christ,\u201d however, does. 
 
When we embrace Jesus, every conversation becomes a conversation in which the Messiah takes part.  Every day becomes a Messiah-day.  Every problem becomes an issue that the Messiah challenges us to address in his way, with his resources. 
 
Just as our thoughts and feelings can be overwhelmed by the experience of being in pain, in debt, in distress, or in love, our eyes can be opened to the fact that being in Christ means he is the always-present Lord over our health, our possessions, our emotions, and our relationships. 
 
Being in Christ means we live every day in the Messiah\u2019s domain \u2013 Jesus\u2019 geography of grace.  
 
That doesn\u2019t mean we always get to fly first class.
 
But it does mean we will never be flying alone.   

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Throughout the month of August, we\u2019re taking a close look at 23 verses of the New Testament.  They comprise Ephesians chapter one, which paints one of the Bible\u2019s most comprehensive pictures of what it means for ordinary people to be \u201cin Christ.\u201d   About a decade ago, on my way to a national gathering of pastors, my connecting flight took me through… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1866,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[480,101,485],"class_list":["post-1865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ephesians","tag-grace","tag-in-christ"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1865"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1868,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1865\/revisions\/1868"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}