The Search For Significance: Seeing Your True Worth Through God’s Eyes
Although difficult to limit meaningful identifying markers to four, the following summarizes the four most important and encouraging identifying markers in my life along with the reasons for my selections. First, in Christ, “I am justified and redeemed.”[1] David Early explains that upon regeneration, God “looks at me through the righteousness of Jesus Christ.”[2] Robert S. McGee furthers the explanation of justification by astutely asking, “When God considers you, does He deceive Himself in some way, or does He know who you truly are? If He knows who we truly are, then why do we preface His understanding of us with phrases such as ‘in God’s eyes, we are righteous’…. Are we trying to say that God is not living in reality? That He is somehow involved in self-deception?”[3] Paul’s letter to the Romans emphatically states, “the righteousness of God has been manifested…through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe” (Romans 3:21-22 NASB). In other words, God does not look at me as if I am righteous when I am not, rather I am righteous, “justified as a gift by His grace” (Romans 3:24). However, when I attempt to find my righteousness or goodness in my relationships, my performance, my career, or anything other than in Christ, I am placed under the control and manipulation of the world. Thankfully, God freed me from the bondage of the world by giving His righteousness – a real righteousness – to me. Accordingly, the importance of justification cannot be overstated.
The remaining identifying markers are in many ways extensions of justification, but if selections are necessary, then the second marker is, “We have been established and sealed in Christ.”[4] The reason for my selection is that I cannot imagine living a life of religious tyranny that constantly questions personal salvation by wondering what I need to do, or not do, in order to procure or keep my salvation. Fortunately, God alone saves and keeps me, because I am “sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise.” (Ephesians 1:13)
The third marker is, “We have been sanctified in Christ.”[5] Sanctification is the process of “making the person holy or good.”[6] The reason for selecting the third marker is that relying on human effort to make myself holy or good would be at best, futile, and at worst, delusively sinful. However, providentially, my sanctification is in Christ (1 Cor. 1:2). In other words, in Christ, the incessant need to sin by finding my value and worth in things outside of Christ subsides, and holiness, which sets me apart from the influences of the world, results. In sum, grace, not human effort, leads to obedience.
The final important and encouraging identifying marker is, “I am one with others in the body of Christ.”[7] The reason for the selection of the fourth marker is that my new creation status is not limited to my new self. Instead, in Christ, He has made “the two into one new man.” (Ephesians 2:15). Amazingly, Christ not only made individual believers new, but also created a new humanity, a new corporate entity of believers, via His death and resurrection.[8] More specifically, Christ did not build a new structure, like constructing a house from hundreds of distinct parts, but instead, He built a “new entity in His own person, it is He Himself in a new dimension.”[9] The ramifications of Christ’s body existing as a new dimension of Him provides an unimaginable power to influence the world now and throughout eternity.
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[1]. Liberty University, “Presentation: Recovering Your Spiritual Identity,” Liberty University Web site, Microsoft Silverlight file, 7:17, http://bb7.liberty.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_1942950_ (accessed April 3, 2013).
[2]. Liberty University, “Presentation: Recovering Your Spiritual Identity,” 7:29.
[3]. Robert S. McGee, The Search for Significance (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2003), 41.
[4]. Liberty University, “Presentation: Recovering Your Spiritual Identity,” 12:05.
[5]. Ibid, 11:40.
[6]. Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 890.
[7]. Liberty University, “Presentation: Recovering Your Spiritual Identity,” 10:42.
[8]. Peter T. O’Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1999), 200.
[9]. R. Schnackenburg, Ephesians: A Commentary (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991), 115.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Erickson, Millard J. Christian Theology. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007.
- Liberty University. “Presentation: Recovering Your Spiritual Identity.” Liberty University Web site. Microsoft Silverlight file. http://bb7.liberty.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_1942950_ (accessed April 3, 2013).
- McGee, Robert S. The Search for Significance. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2003.
- O’Brien, Peter T. The Letter to the Ephesians. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1999.
- Schnackenburg, R. Ephesians: A Commentary. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991.
