Safe At Home

Where are you? Right this minute, where are you?

Do you realize that at this very moment you are in Christ, actually in Him? Now, don’t water that down and think of it only as a metaphor, a nice figure of speech for God and theologians to discuss, but not for us regular folk. God has placed you into the body of Christ and that means everything for your everyday life.

An ugly tendency of my flesh is to insist that I see myself outside of Christ, separate from Him and kind of on my own two feet. I might commonly think of myself as for Him, or on the same team, but not in Him. When those separate from Christ thoughts really get rolling in me, then everything I do becomes subject to judgment. Under the fear of scrutiny, it’s not long before either I’m paralyzed with fear over making a wrong move, taking a wrong step, saying the wrong thing, or I am eventually induced to give up on the attempt to please God. After all, who can actually do that all the time anyway?! Judgment is such a difficult thing to bear.

In my thinking, God becomes the umpire of my life, and mostly I imagine He shouts, “Yer out!” I can almost hear the home crowd groan--Why does he bother to run, anyway?

However, the truth is that I am entirely safe, completely secure, holy and righteous already in Christ, safe at every moment! In Him I’ve scored already. No matter what seems to say “Yer out!” in life, no matter that I sometimes feel like I’m caught in a rundown, soon to be tagged out, or that I’m going to get a red card, whistled for a technical foul, or thrown out of the game for unsportsman-like conduct, it isn’t so—I’m in Christ.

Living by faith in Christ doesn’t excuse or mean He winks at bad behavior. Believing that I am in Him and have everything He earned releases me from the nagging fear of judgment, which always messes up my behavior anyway. Secure in Christ at every moment, I enjoy confidence in Him, and my behavior reflects it. The pressure is off me.

I can run the base paths of life without fear because at every point I’m “Safe!”

“It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God-- that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord." (1 Cor 1:30-31 NIV)