We who believe in Him shall be justified by our faith. (Rom 1:17) Because we are all His people, those of us who believe in Him, He calls us righteous. (Isaiah 10:24) Whether Jewish, Gentile, men, women, slave, free, we are all righteous. That is a difficult concept for those of us who want to believe we’ve cornered the market on the truth. In fact, we know very little of the truth. We don’t realize our Jewish heritage, because the Son of God was Jewish and followed Jewish customs, redesigning them to make His point, but nonetheless the customs had their origins in being a Jew. And Paul in Gal 4:26 exhorts all of us not to forget our heritage, because God’s chosen people were these, before He opened the floodgates and let everyone who called upon Him be called His child.
Because we are His children, because we are called to righteousness, God expects us to act accordingly. We need to show reverence toward God (Acts 20:28; 1 Tim 3:15) and submission and brotherhood toward each other. (Rom 16:16) Because once we are in the church, His church, we are truly on Mount Zion, in the living city of the living God. (Heb 12:22,23) and praise God for this city. For in its pristine state, not the carnal one we so often are blindsided by, but in the state God intends it to exist, the church has no politics and there is a purity of a bride being presented to a groom on their wedding day, full of hope and excitement and the passions and joys of love. He has given us His Name. (Eph. 3:15) He calls us to be His sheep. (Ezek 34:15, John 10:16) just as the sheep know the master’s voice, in Him we know His voice. One voice made up of many, we are made up of different laborers (1 Cor 3:9), different nations (Joel 3:2). “We are bound together for an habitat of God through the Spirit” (Eph. 2:22). By God’s Spirit, we are held together as His building, His family, His daughter (Ps 45:13), the bride of His only begotten (Rev 21:2). We belong to His household (Eph 2:19) and we are His inheritance (Ps 20:9; Is 19:25). We are His people when we walk in Him. (Gal 6:16) Because we are all these things, we who are many are one. And He blesses us when we realize it is His kingdom that is important, when we “seek first His kingdom”. (Matt 6:33) How do we enter? This is the tricky part: we need to let go all our prejudices, repent, and understand what lies ahead and not be caught up in the wiles of time and temptations thrown at us from satan. None of us have a special discount card. And He blesses us when we come to the collective realization that it is all His anyway. (Matt 6:33) And because it is His first when we not only acknowledge it, but come to seek Him first, His kingdom, and what it is truly made of, the treasures, the beauties therein then we can understand what it means to walk in Him. Then and only then. And when we walk in Him, letting go of idols, particularly in our worship, is not so difficult, as it was for the rich young ruler. (Matt 19:24) and it is easy to repent and realize that our days on this earth are truly numbered. None of us are guaranteed the next second, so that to seek Him and to find Him that is more precious because it is the only secure thing that can be held onto.
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