To Live is Christ — called and named

Last night a speaker at a convention talked to Christian leaders about outreach. He offered a simple strategy about being the right person with the right message and going about it in the right way with some prior planning. These are not his words, but mine.

His message and my paraphrase illustrate that there are many ways to say the same thing. Anyone who has raised children knows that sometimes this must be done in order to be heard and understood, never mind obeyed.

I read the passage that I am studying in two versions this morning, the Contemporary English Version and the New American Standard Bible. Here is what they say:

Behave like obedient children. Don’t let your lives be controlled by your desires, as they used to be. Always live as God’s holy people should, because God is the one who chose you, and he is holy. (1 Peter 1:14–15, CEV)

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior. (1 Peter 1:14–15, NASB)

The phrase that caught my attention is about God’s selection. One version calls it choosing, the other a calling. One implies being picked; the other implies the necessity of a response.

My Greek dictionary gives another slant to this word. It means to call, to call aloud, or utter in a loud voice. It can also mean to invite, or to name by name, or even to give a name to, or receive the name of, or receive as a name, or to be called, i.e., to bear a name or title (among men), or to salute one by name.

After reading that, I had the sense that these verses were telling me that God who is holy calls me or names me by a new designation. Instead of being a sinner (even though I still sin), He names me a holy person. Because I am holy and set apart by His invitation and His naming of me, I am to act like it. This is not just because of what He has made of me though; I am to be holy because He is holy.

This might seem like a lot of words. Others might hear God more clearly if He said this in a different way, but I hear this one. I’ve been given an identity and a name. I am a set apart person, identified by God as His child and called holy. I am to ignore anything from my old sinful nature that bids me follow it. Instead of that old way of life, I’m to live up to what God says I am.

I’ve had nearly forty years of practice trying to fit into this new role and new identity. Each day I’m reminded one way or another that I am not the person that I once was and that I need to cast off the old and put on the new. No matter how God says it, the marvel of it never becomes ho-hum. I’m overjoyed to be chosen, called, named, saluted, given a title, called holy. Belonging to Jesus is simply a rush.