1 Peter 2:4-12
(Use the link below to read the verses.)
What defines you? What is your identity? Is it your career or what you do such as being a parent a student or an athlete? Is it where you live? Is it some great accomplishment; or something shameful that you did? Is it a physical trait like the shape of your body or how attractive you are?
Whatever it is, one thing is for sure; your identity sets the course of your life. It gives direction to your attitudes, your beliefs, and your decisions.
In Peter’s letter, he wrote to believers that were living in a precarious time. Followers of Christ were being persecuted daily, sometimes at the cost of their lives. Peter speaks to the core of their condition… their identity. Their identity will define them because it will determine how they respond and live their lives of faith.
9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. NIV
9-10 But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God’s instruments to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for you—from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted. MSG
These two translations of the same verses give you insights into who you are as a believer; into what, or who defines you.
You have been chosen not because you are holy, but to be holy through God’s mercy.
You have been chosen to be a part of the people of God; not a lone ranger.
You have been chosen because God has a plan and a purpose for your life.
You are a child of God, chosen by Him to serve and to love Him. That is your identity. That is what defines you.
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