The People of God
“For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.” (Deuteronomy 7:6, NIV) “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 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.” (1 Peter 2:9-10, NIV)
Please don’t miss the Lord’s emphasis on us being the “People of God” as Marion Baptist Church. I try to emphasize it each week in the greeting of this very article. Moses reminds us in Deuteronomy that there was a higher calling for the Israelites. Peter reminds us in the book by his name that there is a higher calling for us at the church.
Satan wants us to minimize the role of the church (the role of the people of God) in each others’ lives, in our community and in our world. Jim Cymbala points out, “(Satan wants Christians) to think that ‘church’ is only a place you visit on Sundays…if you can spare the time.” While most of us would say that we want God to bless Marion Baptist Church, the reality is that many do not really see how God could use them daily to be a blessing to the church (people of God). Please join me in praying that God will show us, the people of God called Marion Baptist Church, how we belong to God to use our time, money and energy for His glory.
