What Are You?
In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. Galatians 3:26
READ Galatians 3:26–4:7
When I walked into the ice cream shop with
my five-year-old biracial son, the man behind the counter glanced at me
and stared at my child. “What are you?”
His question and harsh tone triggered the all-too-familiar anger and
heartache I’d experienced growing up as a Mexican-American who didn’t
fit stereotypes. Pulling Xavier closer, I turned toward my Black husband
as he entered the store. With eyes narrowed, the store clerk completed
our order in silence.
I prayed silently for the man as my son listed the flavors of ice
cream he wanted to try. Repenting of my bitterness, I asked God to give
me a spirit of forgiveness. With my light-but-not-white complexion, I’d
been the target of similar glares accompanying that same question over
the years. I’d struggled with insecurities and feelings of worthlessness
until I began learning how to embrace my identity as God’s beloved
daughter.
The apostle Paul declares that believers in Jesus are “all children
of God through faith,” equally valued and beautifully diverse. We’re
intimately connected and intentionally designed to work together
(Galatians 3:26–29). When God sent His Son to redeem us, we became
family through His blood shed on the cross for the forgiveness of our
sins (4:4–7). As God’s image-bearers, our worth cannot be determined by
the opinions, expectations, or biases of others.
What are we? We’re children of God.
By Xochitl Dixon |
When have you doubted your value as a person
due to the opinions, expectations, or biases of others? How does
knowing all God’s children are His image-bearers help you love those who
are different from you?
Father God, please help me to see myself and
others through Your eyes. Help me love with Your heart as I come into
contact with people who are different from me. | | | | |
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Paul isn’t abolishing all ethnic, economic,
or gender distinctions in the church (Galatians 3:28). Rather, in
speaking of our salvation, Paul says God treats everyone on the same
basis: All have sinned—“we are all prisoners of sin” (3:22 nlt;
see Romans 3:23). Everyone needs to repent (Acts 2:38; 3:19). We’re all
saved in the same way—by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8–9). “In
Christ Jesus [we] are all children of God through faith” (Galatians
3:26). In Jesus, God embraces us equally (1 Corinthians 12:13;
Colossians 3:11). While we enter God’s family by being “born again”
(John 3:3; 1 Peter 1:3, 23), Paul uses the concept of adoption to
describe our standing in the family so we can immediately claim our
status and enjoy our full privileges as His children—“God has made you
also an heir” (Galatians 4:7). We’re “heirs of God and co-heirs with
Christ” (Romans 8:17).
K. T. Sim
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