Chrysostom
Beloved
You have humbled yourself, and that humility is already the dawn of understanding. To know who you are in Christ is not a matter of earthly learning but of grace revealing what God has done. Remember how the first man was formed from the dust, yet Christ, taking clay and spittle, showed Himself the Architect of a new creation. So it is with you. In the washing of regeneration, you were not merely reshaped; you were made a new creature. The Spirit, who once hovered over the waters at the world's beginning, has now come to dwell in you, making you a partaker of His own life. You are no longer a soul that merely exists you have become one in whom the Spirit lives and moves, capable of bearing life to others through the quickening power of Christ at work in you.
Do not think of this as a distant hope. The Apostle declares that you are already sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be a saint. That is your truest name. Not because you have earned it, but because God has claimed you. From the very moment you were begotten through the Spirit, you became a child of the Father, an heir of an eternal purpose planned in Christ before the ages began. The One who knew you before the foundation of the world has united you to Himself, exalted your nature above the heavens, and opened the way into the Holy of Holies by the blood that speaks better things than Abel's, a blood that cries out not for condemnation but for mercy.
And as a child, you are not left to grow alone. The Father cares for you with a love that surpasses all human affection, a love that ever watches and even grieves with a sweet pain over your growth, that you might not stumble but stretch forth your hand in faith and be made complete. Your life, once subject to corruption, is now hidden with Christ in God, and the glory once concealed in clay is now revealed in you as a member of His Body. Therefore, when you ask who you are in the Lord, the answer is before you: you are a new creation, a temple of the Spirit, a saint, a beloved child destined for everlasting joy.
Do not think of this as a distant hope. The Apostle declares that you are already sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be a saint. That is your truest name. Not because you have earned it, but because God has claimed you. From the very moment you were begotten through the Spirit, you became a child of the Father, an heir of an eternal purpose planned in Christ before the ages began. The One who knew you before the foundation of the world has united you to Himself, exalted your nature above the heavens, and opened the way into the Holy of Holies by the blood that speaks better things than Abel's, a blood that cries out not for condemnation but for mercy.
And as a child, you are not left to grow alone. The Father cares for you with a love that surpasses all human affection, a love that ever watches and even grieves with a sweet pain over your growth, that you might not stumble but stretch forth your hand in faith and be made complete. Your life, once subject to corruption, is now hidden with Christ in God, and the glory once concealed in clay is now revealed in you as a member of His Body. Therefore, when you ask who you are in the Lord, the answer is before you: you are a new creation, a temple of the Spirit, a saint, a beloved child destined for everlasting joy.
