We have been thinking about the dependableness of being in Christ. It is not a hit-or-miss affair, coming and going with passing emotions; it is as dependable as the law of gravitation—and more! The law of gravitation is created by the Creator, a created thing, but when you depend on being in Christ you are dependent on the Creator Himself, on His character as revealed in Christ. Remain in Christ and you are as secure as security, as constant as constancy. The sum total of reality is behind you. This is seen in this amazing passage:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 8:35–39)
This passage is remarkable in that it shows the essential difference between Christianity and all other faiths. The difference is to be found in that little word “in”—“No, in all these things.” The Hebrew word is “out of all these things”; the Buddhist word is “apart from all these things”; the Hindu word, “above all these things”; the Mohammedan word, “beyond all these things”—in heaven; the materialist’s word, “by all these things”; the Christian word, “in all these things.” The center of the Christian faith is the Incarnation—“the Word became flesh.” The Word became incarnate, not supercarnate, nor subcarnate, nor excarnate, but incarnate. The victory was wrought out “in.” That “in” is the most important word in history.
THE PRAYER
O God, our Father, Thou didst not sit on a cloud and attempt to redeem us by picking us up with celestial tongs, lest Thou dirty Thy hands with this messy business of our sins. Thou didst lift us from within. I thank Thee. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY
If I work out my destiny, it must be “in”—no other way.
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One Response
Stay securely IN by the blood of the Lamb!
When you are truly in Christ, you remain in the world but are no longer of the world. In Him you live and move and have your being. Although you reside physically in the world, you are called to abide in the living Jesus and in every issue to be always on His side, not the popular side, even when it makes people decide to reject you. To be in Christ is to be an outsider–a stranger and pilgrim who abstains from the spirit of the world–a citizen of the kingdom of God, seated with Jesus in heavenly places.