Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. 1 Peter 2:10
Peter writes, once we were not “a people,” meaning we didn’t have an identity. Before we came to Christ we were like orphans. Though we had natural parents we didn’t have a sense of knowing who we were. We had no true sense of worth. But now we are someone because we belong to him. God calls us his own, he makes us his children. We gain a sense of belonging and worth because we are his. John writes that we are children of God and then he emphasises this by adding “And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1).
Not only are we “a people” but we are “a chosen people” (1 Peter 2:9). “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight” (Ephesians 1:4) and “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved” (Colossians 3:12). This was all God’s initiative. He has chosen to lavish his love upon us. We don’t have to try to be holy and dearly loved because God has made us holy in Christ. We don’t have to feel that God disapproves of us or that we will never be “good enough” or that we have to earn his approval. He approves of us because of what Christ has done.
When we fully grasp the implications of this we will be overwhelmed that God would go to such extraordinary lengths to include us in his family. It will fill us with gratitude and cause us to fall in love with him.
Jesus promised, “I will not leave you as orphans” (John 14:18). We are secure in the knowledge that we are his forever.
