May 2011
Dear Friends
As I write this letter on a sunny Friday morning the Royal Wedding is taking place (and I have to confess I am watching it on BBC iplayer as I write this!). On the day that Kate Middleton becomes part of the royal family I am drawn to the verses found in 1 Peter which impacted me again as I read them last week.
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)
We “are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God”. That is hard for us to get our heads around. We are royalty, adopted into God’s family. We, who were once separated from God, now, through his mercy, belong to him. This is where we find our identity, our value, our acceptance, our home. As we have focussed on the grace of God over the past few Sundays we have been reminded that we can never earn God’s love or acceptance but that He, our God, our Father, has called us, has chosen us, has loved us and has, by his grace and mercy, made us his own. We are royalty; sons and daughters of the King.
Within these verses we not only see that we are chosen by God and that we belong to him, but that we, together, have a calling, a purpose. We are to “declare the praises of him who called [us] out of darkness into his wonderful light.” We are to declare the praises of God in everything we do. We are to be worshippers of God. We are to live as those who belong to God. Whether it is in our sung worship as we meet together, whether it is in our attitudes and priorities, our integrity, our marriages, our families, our workplaces, the way we spend our time and money, the way we love and bless others, in all these things we are to be those who declare God’s praises. We are to exalt him, to glorify him and to let those who still live in darkness know that there is wonderful light.
These are exciting and challenging days for Liberty Church and it is so important that we understand who we are in God and that we declare his praises in our lives together. Let us live in his wonderful light and point others to that light.
Love and blessings
Jon
Jon Farrimond, 11/05/2011