“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.” (Eph 1:3-6)
I continue to be blown away by the reality of our justification and adoption through Christ. In His epistle to the church in Ephesus, Paul made this reality absolutely clear. But what does this mean? I’ve been a Christian for years, and I already know this. Why is this so significant to me on a practical level?
It is of supreme significance.
The reality is that we want to feel like we are justified and accepted. Some of us fight to find what we are looking for in our work, in our family, in our morality or even in our own independence from all of those things. Our natural inclination is to seek out that significance. Beneath it all, we think that we are on our own; ultimately, we are enslaved by the prospect of insignificance. So we fight. When we fear that we are not valued, we work harder in order to justify ourselves before others, ourselves, and even God. Anything that calls our value or worth into question intensifies our fears of unworthiness. So we often attempt to outperform whatever that fear is.
Fear is manifested in a lot of different ways. It can be manifested in anxiety, anger, frustration, jealousy, depression and more. It is when our fears are greater than our faith that we act upon them. We long for satisfaction and perfection (aka, a sense of being complete or whole). After all, in our original created state, that was our condition. We had all that we needed through God’s faithful provision; then there was the fall. No we are not dissatisfied and we feel incomplete; so we fight. We fight to achieve satisfaction in all the things under the sun. We try to do good deeds to reach that “point”, and then we keep trying more. Maybe we envy those whom we view as God honoring people, and strive to imitate them. We think that we need to achieve a certain image of righteousness to be approved before ourselves, before others and before God.
Maybe we deflect our own dissatisfaction with ourselves onto those around us, and complain about “this thing” they have done, or “that thing” they have said. We easily make note of how messed up everyone else is. We nitpick at the insignificant idiosyncrasies of those around us. We think (but never say out loud), “Hey, if everyone else is on the defense, my own failures will not be so obvious.” Inevitably, we fail. We fail miserably to be satisfied. Some people turn the misery of their failure onto themselves. Others project their misery onto those around them. When all is said and done, we are afraid of being left incomplete, insufficient, unjustified and unaccepted. That fear impacts the way we relate to God, to others, and even to our own hearts. But why? I do these things in the deepest part of my soul. I do not want to act this way. I do not want to be selfish. I do not want to do these things! As a Christian, the Spirit of God is at work and in conflict with my flesh. The Apostle Paul cries out, “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” (Rom 7:24)
Paul then responds to his own heart by saying, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord… Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 7:25, 8:1). Furthermore, he describes this frustrated state by saying, “the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body” (Rom 8:19-23).
Paul got this! He knew of man’s longing for wholeness. The entirety of God’s creation long to be complete and restored unto God’s intended state. But by His grace, God has subjected us all to futility so that we might fall on our faces before Him and cry out for our adoption and redemption. That’s why Paul says, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Through Christ Jesus, there is a promise and there is hope.
Brothers and sisters, let’s not forget that Christ has redeemed us and God has adopted us. From an eternal perspective, we have no need to fight for our own significance, so why do we do it? Because our fear of being unjustified is often greater than our faith that God has completed His work in Christ for our justification. Our fear of being unaccepted is often greater than our faith that God has adopted us into His family and made us coheirs with Him.
Remember His faithfulness. Remember His promise. When we let go of our own reputations and cling to His completed work, we are liberated to deal honestly with our own hearts in light of who God is. What are we afraid of? If you are in Christ, there is no need to be afraid. “In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved” (Eph 1:5-6).
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