The Other Half

There are, generally speaking, two ways to legally own something in society: to make it or to buy it. Even your paycheck falls into the latter because you have given your time and effort for that money. Then, of course, that money is used to buy things in the more traditional sense of the word.

God owns us by virtue of both means. He made us, and then He bought us back when we'd given ourselves away. There is no reason for us to believe we are not His.

I was intending to go through what Jesus suffered to show how much He loves us, but I think I may take a different track.

There may be no reason for us to believe we are not His, yet it seems most Christians do. I'm writing another book right now on confidence/finding your identity in Christ and this one is a re-telling of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, told through the journals of the father and his two sons. The story in the Bible doesn't really end, though, in the sense of all loose ends being tied up, so I take it a bit further, and use a little literary license to ask, "What would happen if the younger brother had woken up the next morning, not put on the robe, left the sandals, and taken off the ring, and gone to work in the field with the servants because he felt unworthy?" I think a lot of Christians fall into that category. We are grateful to be back with our father, but we forget our status as a son or daughter, we forget that our unworthiness doesn't matter to our father.

Or we forget that we have always been His, like the older brother, and we get frustrated trying to earn things that He wants to give us and will when our hearts are focused on Him.

Both ways speak of pride (in thinking we can ever earn something from God) and lead to frustration, anger, emptiness, and a life that is nothing like what God wants for us. This is not a name-it, claim-it message. I'm not saying God will give you mansions and billions of dollars if you ask and believe. Paul lived a life of prisons and beatings, yet he was so full of God's love that he could sing in prison, so full of faith in God that even when his chains fell off, he didn't leave because God didn't want him to. And I personally believe that he wouldn't have traded his life for that of a king's. No, your life may not be full of gold and vacations if you follow God, though there are some devoted Christians God has chosen to entrust a lot of money to, but how about a life of joy, a life where you can relax knowing you don't have to prove yourself to anyone, a life of freedom to love others and yourself purely? How much would that be worth?

That's our heritage in Christ. That's what we get when we both know Him and believe we're His. We were made by Him and bought by Him. And then He turned us from the slaves we ought to rightfully be into His adopted sons and daughters.