October 19

Day 219: All the Same

(For those of you daily readers, I will be in Anchorage beginning Tuesday this week. I'll pick up these posts again a week from today.)

We Christians are sometimes plagued with self-doubt. We more easily see our short-comings than we do our advantages. Humility is a virtue for sure, but not when it comes at the expense of our receiving the riches in Christ.

Even if any of us thinks themself to be the weakest of believers in comparison to others, we are all bought with the shed blood of Jesus all the same. If we think our faith is the faintest of anyone's, that same faith, at whatever level, has cleansed us all the same.

The covenant mercies of God apply equally to all of His children. An infant is just as much a child as the fully grown adult child. Both are equally members of the family. While Paul wrote to the Corinthians, calling them "infants in Christ," it was not a compliment, or a developmental stage for them to be satisfied.

But, that the Father loved them with the same intensity of love He has for any/all of His redeemed children. The preacher, Charles Spurgeon said, "All of the names in the Book of Life, those great and those small, are all written with the same pen."

If it were dependent on our own efforts, our own position and standing in the church, even in how much we read our Bibles, how long we pray, the hours we devote to serving our church, or how often we share our faith with others, we would all try harder. A lot harder.

And we should, but not out of desperation, but as out of thankful response. The riches of Christ already are held in deposit for all of us. We cannot and need not try to earn what is already ours.

Our efforts will never add up. Our comparisons with others will never leave us truly believing we are superior. The foundation and confidence we have in what we're given is not based on us. It is based on the covenant love, initiated and extended to us by God's own willingness and desire.

What separates the faith of a Christian from adherents to other religions? We know that we bring nothing to the equation but our own sin, our own weakness and failures. Even the faith we do have is given to us.

And yet, we are all called "Conquerers in Christ." We've already won, we've already done enough, we've already been made rich with the spoils of war. We are the inheritors.

Because we believers inherit the results of the life and work of Jesus. All of us. All the same.

-Mike Rydman, Lead Pastor, Radiant Church Juneau