By What Are You Defined?

What defines you?

Is it your hair?

Perhaps it is the way you laugh or maybe your smile. Your perfect teeth?

Maybe you are known as a reader, someone who curls up in a corner with a book and disappears from this world for hours at a time.

Are you defined by your causes, the things you constantly champion? There are so many good things in this world to hold up. So many things that people need to defend. So many needs.

You might be defined by your family, if it is a strong or strange family.

There are lots of things that can define us if we allow them to. There are many different faces we can present. There are many different ways that we can shape how we are known. Or, we can allow other people to do it for us.

Sometimes things we have no control over are used by people to define who they see us to be. Born to a single parent. Born to a poor family. Raised in a dysfunctional neighbourhood. Do we get to choose our height or gender or skin colour? But these are used by some to define us.

We cannot do much about how some people choose to define us but we can do a lot about how we define ourself. In fact, we should know that we don't define ourselves. We are defined by our Father.

A couple of things we need to understand starts with the fact that our Father had a choice with us. He could have just left us to our own destruction. Sin defined us, as did hatred and rebellion. But our Father's love for us was too great. While we were his enemies he did what had to be done so that he could adopt us. He had to sacrifice his only Son so that a way would be made possible for us to become his children.

People don't understand that Jesus sacrificed himself for eternity. Jesus gave up what he was to become the first born. He became something new. He became what we will become on resurrection day, the day we will be called to him. In a blink of an eye everything will change. But for now, at this time, in this place we are covered his grace. Our Father is covering us, calling us holy and blameless, declaring it so that it is.

You see, we are defined by our Father, by the grace he has poured over us. He has called us holy and blameless. He has called us his children. He has called us sinless and perfect in his sight.

In his sight!

It doesn't matter how anyone else defines you. Doesn't matter how you define yourself. Doesn't even matter how Satan defines you. All that matters is how the Father defines you.

And he says you are beautiful!

But don't just sit there admiring yourself. There are a lot of other people lost in the ugliness of their sin who also need to hear this good news. They need to hear that God has redefined them, that they are not stuck, that there is hope, light and a future for them. You need to tell them, because of Jesus, our Father only sees perfection in them.

Go on! Tell them.





For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. (Ephesians 1:4)

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Not Choosing But Chosen

We who follow Jesus Christ, who are citizens of his Kingdom, who have died and now live through him, are a very blessed people. We need to be reminded of that fact. The reason we need to be reminded is because we forget.

We forget that we are blessed because living in this place, where we do not belong, can cause us to forget. We get busy, distracted, overwhelmed and we forget. We forget who we belong to. We forget we are here with purpose. We forget that this is a temporary thing and the permanent is on the way. We forget to look up.

Over the next few days I want to remind you of the greatest blessings we have received. I want to remind you, in all your busyness of living, to look up. And I am starting with this reminder:

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. (Ephesians 1:4)

First blessing: He chose us! Yes, so often we think it is us who have chosen him and perhaps that is a reason we get things so wrong all the time. Jesus said:

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. (John 15:16)

Remember those words today as you hurry around in the insignificant busyness of your little life. Jesus chose you, knows you, loves you and has appointed you to something bigger than your life. So grow into it.

He didn't just choose you though. Jesus chose you before the creation of the world. Before God called light into being he knew you intimately and he made provision for each day of your life. He knew you and still he decided to go ahead with it. He went ahead with it because he enjoyed the thought of having even the possibility of being with you.

Don't miss out on the important bits here. He chose us for something. He chose us to be holy and blameless in his sight. Not that we could do this but he has blessed us by declaring us holy and blameless. It is what Jesus has done for us. We forget this. We forget that it has already been done for us and we try to do it ourselves. Instead of just letting the Spirit work this blessing out in our life we struggle and fill our life with guilt and shame when we fail.

We can be really stupid sometimes.

Look up!

Realize who you belong to and why. Realize what our King has done for us and why. Realize you have been chosen and blessed beyond measure and you walk around today holy and blameless in his sight. Realize you are more than what you see in the mirror. You are more than all your failings combined. Your failings do not define you. Jesus defines you.

My friend, you are blessed.

Look up!

Be defined today.

You have been chosen and you are holy and blameless.

Ignorant Of God's Blessings

You are blessed, child of God. You may be ignorant, stubborn, forgetful, ungrateful but you are still blessed. We all need to be reminded of that fact because we so easily forget in the busyness of our day. In fact, right now we should all take a moment and just say "I am a blessed child of my heavenly Father". It is not that we have one or two blessings but all of them. Apostle Paul writes:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. (Ephesians 1:3)

Praise be indeed! Every spiritual blessing in Jesus has been given to us. Every. We are a rich people

You might be thinking, "I don't feel blessed". That's because we keep equating blessings with physical comfort. But our Father's desire for us goes beyond simple temporary things and he provides us with what we need for eternity. Remember, we don't belong to this place any more. We are here with a purpose which is the mission Jesus gave to us, but other than that our citizenship belongs in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.

We need to make that shift. We have to be willing to lose our mistaken value of these temporary things. We need to allow the Spirit to give us the right perspective, focus and understanding. We have to be willing to give up the struggle, to let go, and to let the Spirit do it in us. We need to desire to value what God values. We need to desire to see what he sees.

If the only thing we seek and value in life is our creature comforts then we will not have the taste for the true blessings of God. It is like being raised on fast food all of your life. It kills your taste buds so when you eat a finer meal, something home made and seasoned to perfection, you cannot appreciate and value it.

Many Christians are more interested in God's daily provision than they are in his salvation. They would rather pray for a sports car than they would holiness. They value their large screen TV more than they do the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. What about the fact that our Father has declared us blameless in his sight? Isn't that a blessing more highly valued than the $1000 that unexpectedly arrived at your door?

There are all kinds of temporary physical blessings God fills our lives with that are great. A good wife is a blessing. Lots of children are a blessing. A job is a blessing. Good health is a blessing. As great as these are they only have temporary value in this place. Consider the real value of grace, forgiveness, peace, love, and joy, just to name a few. These are the things are ours every day and that should provoke us to praise our God from the rooftops.

The Church used to sing a song that encouraged us to count our blessings, to name them one by one. The song reminded us that when we take the time to daily remember these incredible blessings it reminds us of what God has done for us. When we remember what he has done then we also remember his love for us and that alone will rescue us from whatever kind of day we are experiencing. The praises of our King will be forever sweet upon our lips if only we can remember what a blessed people we are.