God's People: In or Out....How Do We Know Where We Are?

1 Peter 2:10

Once you were not a people,
   but now you are God’s people;
once you had not received mercy,
   but now you have received mercy.  

There is nuance of meaning in this phrase.  It has a couple of reference points that would be familiar to the audience.  To the New Testament folks, like ourselves, it looks at what we were before and after we came to Christ, before and after we became God’s people.  Humanity loves dualism, white and black, good and bad.  And this is an excellent representation of that.  You have God or you do not have God, it is one or the other.  The question that plagues many people is seeking clarity to know if they have God or not.

People knowing the Old Testament can look back to the time before God chose Abraham, before God’s people came into the world.  But I think Peter is considering something more immediate.

Maybe you remember the time that you were not a member of a ‘people’, when you existed in the world, trying to find your way.  Then along came a Jesus experience and…now what?  Being God’s people, does that demand we belong to a church?  Is that where the people are to be found?  This is the problem of black and white thinking, if you are not convinced you are on the white side, the automatic assumption is that you are on the black side of it.  Thus, if you are not convinced you are of God’s people, you are automatically excluded from God’s people, with all those others who are not a ‘people’ at all.

Dual thinking does little good for humanity.  It is fine for God.  God knows who belongs to God and who does not.  We can become paranoid trying to figure out what God thinks about us.  If we have doubts about God, does God have doubts about us?  Is there no gray area while trying to figure things out?  I believe we have to flip the equation.

Those individuals who are ‘not a people’ know they are not.  They have rejected God, they are out for their own desires and fulfillment, they have made a clear and persistent choice about the kind of life they will lead, and God is not a part of the equation, at least not in this lifetime. 

But for the doubter, the questioner, the wonderer, the paranoid, the fearful, the rejected, the broken, the reprobate, everyone who is unsure of or feels they are undeserving of a relationship with God, take a minute to thank God that He is in control.  Because you are in until you choose to deal yourself out.  God does not turn his back on us, we turn our backs on Him.

If you are told that because you are not sure of your relationship with Jesus that your eternal soul is in jeopardy, read on to the next posting about the next piece of this couplet.