Hey guys, for those of you that enjoy reading these little things, I apologize that I haven't been on the ball lately and haven't gotten a post up in quite some time. This one will probably be pretty short.
I recently read through 1st and 2nd Thessalonians. I was expecting to get a ton out of them because I love when I get to read something that Paul wrote. There's always so much wisdom and truth in the letters he writes to the early churches and those whom he discipled. This time, however, I got through the first paragraph and was so struck by what I read that I really wasn't able to pay much attention to the rest of the letter.
This is what I read, "This letter is from Paul, Silas, and Timothy.We are writing to the church in Thessalonica, to you who belong to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. May God give you grace and peace." (1 Thessalonians 1:1) I got so caught up in that I could barely learn anything else. The words "those who belong to God" stood out so much that I couldn't go on for a while, I had to let them sink in.
For so long (this is probably my 3rd or 4th time reading through these books) I had interpreted that very same "belong" as merely being "those who God owns". And that's true, I'm God's possession. He owns me, and that's pretty cool! But for whatever reason, good old Daddy decided to take me so much deeper, and show me another way to view me belonging to him.
Let me use an example that I thought about that helped me understand another way to interpret the word "belong". Do you put a spatula in the same place that you put an apple? ... I hope you all said, "No" because if you didn't... you're weird :) but that's okay! That's because a spatula doesn't BELONG in the same place that an apple BELONGS. It's as if he's saying , "To those who are in the right place in relationship to God and Christ Jesus..." We belong to God, he has made a spot for us.
Let me use another example to help demonstrate another way that this "belong" struck me. Say you "belong" to a certain club. Most clubs have to go through some sort of vetting process, interviews, or something to have you be accepted there. Once you're accepted, you become a member and you then belong to that club. God has accepted us into his club of weirdos that love him, and has made a place for us with him. We are accepted, we have a place, God has made room for us. God made room for me.... I know that this all might be so mind-numbingly obvious to you that you're thinking, "Why did I just spend a couple minutes reading this blog by that crazy dude to get to read that point? Of course I belong to God!" And I don't know, maybe this struck me so hard because I've always felt a little bit out of place. Maybe it's because I've always been the one who tries to make other people feel included because I felt left out, but regardless of all that, this is powerful, life changing stuff! Think about it with me for a second. God doesn't need anything from anyone! He's good all by himself, but he decided to say, "You know what? I really like that dude,I think he's pretty neat. I'm going to call him to follow me and make room for him in my kingdom." I'm so humbled when I think about this, my daddy, who didn't have to be my daddy, decided to chase me, make a place for me and accept me: flaws and all. How great is our God? When I'm with him, I'm truly where I belong.
