The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my mind and heart in Colossians 3:12,
"Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved..."
Paul identifies believers in three ways in this verse: "God's chosen people", "holy" and "dearly loved"
His phrase, "God's chosen people" refers to God's decision, his choice of all those who will embrace him in faith. God sends his message, the gospel, and all who respond to it inherit eternal life in his family. Paul says, "Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ." Romans 10:17. The result is what he says a few verses earlier, "If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved." Romans 10:9-10.
Paul's second observation of believers, "holy" comes from another choice God has made. Before time began God determined he would build a human family for himself out of those who would embrace him in faith. When he did so, he also decided then that they be holy and blameless in his sight, in his court. In Ephesians 1:4 we read, "For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight."
The phrase that catches my heart this morning is the last one, "dearly loved." Believers are dearly loved by God. As I consider what it means to be "dearly loved" I find it astonishing the heart of love the Lord has for us. How many things do you hold as "dearly loved"? I have the notion that of all things that are loved, "dearly loved" indicates those things closest to the heart, those things most greatly loved, most heartily loved, most earnestly loved. Whatever that object may be, if it is "dearly loved" indicates it has great importance in the heart.
For me, I tend to ask with the psalmist, "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?" Psalm 8:3-4. Particularly me!
And yet... as Paul observes, those who have embraced Jesus Christ in faith are "dearly loved" by him! I'm certain there are very, very few of whom I find myself as someone that is dearly loved by them. And, imagine! God is one of them!
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!
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