Treasures in Christ

Summary

Some years ago…. Judy Wendt….wanting to teach us a spiritual discipline introduced us to the method of pulling out key phrases from the Bible. She began with Ephesians chapters 1-3 and the phrase “in Christ”. She was a wise woman for as young mothers she knew we would be strengthened in our role if we better understood our own identity. The lesson was basic – simply find all the phrases with the statement, “in Christ” and learn about who the Word of God says we are.

That was 16 years ago and I have performed this exercise every few years since then. The last time I did so was this past summer when I re-discovered 30 references to my inherited identity in Christ. When I first started doing this I was a new Christian and as some of us can be when we first fall in love, I did not question anything and simply enjoyed the references. As the years went by I became more aware of my own doubts and through honest work and reflection I realized that there were things that I had learned and memorized intellectually, but had difficulty believing intellectually and with my heart. And there were places where what I believed in my mind and what I felt were not lining up. So I began asking God to help me identify these and asked Him to help me believe more with my heart. This process has been formative for me and has helped me through challenging times.