Where Are You?
This question was first asked in the garden after Adam had sinned and tried to hide himself from God. Of course, there’s no way anyone could ever hide from God because God sees everything. So the question was for Adam’s sake, not God’s.
In the letter to the Hebrews, we discover some communication that does not ask this question but rather answers it. It speaks of where believers are not brought to and positioned, but instead where they are brought to and positioned.
They were under threat of losing sight of what was made available to them in Christ. They were tempted to go back to the system of law observance and all the customs and traditions required to be convinced one was right with God.
In other words, they were under threat of losing their identity and failing to realize where they had been brought spiritually in Christ. They were under this threat because they had begun to lean on their own understanding once again. They had allowed themselves to think more according to their natural selves than to their spiritual selves.
To make the point clear, a contrast is made between what took place at the origin of the law and what takes place in Christ. The law came from a mountain that burned with fire, was covered in smoke, darkness, tempest, the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, and those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken due to their great fear. It was from that mountain that the law came forth.
When someone is born again through faith in Christ Jesus, they are brought to a place way different from that of the law.
Hebrew 12:22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, 23 to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, 24 to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.
In Christ, you are placed in this reality spiritually. You are born from heaven above. You are a heavenly citizen with a heavenly birthright. Your name becomes written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. You are brought to the city of the living God! You become part of the heavenly Jerusalem! You stand amid an innumerable company of angels! You are counted along with those who are among the church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, and you appear before God the Judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and you stand before Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and you do so based on the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than the blood of Abel.
Abel’s blood cried out from the ground before God for justice. The blood of Jesus cries out for mercy and grace and establishes forgiveness.
Ephesians 2:19 Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,
In Christ, we no longer are far away, distant, on the outside looking in, or not belonging. In Christ, we have been brought near! In Christ, we have left behind that far away, not fitting in, not a part identity, and have become fellow citizens! Once you know who you are and where you are, you live according to what you know to be true. What you think you know in the natural can be swallowed up in what you have become according to the Spirit. There is no condemnation for those who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
I encourage you today to know where you are according to the testimony of Scripture. Know what and who you are surrounded by, and know the truth about how you stand before Him! According to the new covenant truth, In Christ, you have been repositioned in life.
