A Chosen People



Winters in Chicago can be particularly difficult, even though our city is one of the best prepared for it. Along with only 8-9 hours of daylight, we can experience many days of overcast along with the snow and cold. And when the sun finally does shine, the temperature usually drops to near zero degrees Fahrenheit. Early last February was particularly difficult, when we had a blizzard which brought 60 mile per hour winds and two or more feet of snow. It took a couple days for most people to dig out, then the temperature dropped and we had even more misery.

Winter days seem to accentuate the difficulties of everyday life. The guys in our small prayer group at church were going through some particularly difficult times during this period: one was going through home foreclosure, another was experiencing a drop in business and difficulties with a son, and another had a sick wife. It was during this gloomy and depressing time that we came across the Bible passage of 1 Peter 2: 9-10, where Peter is giving encouragement to believers going through hard times, which says:

"…. for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. Once you had no identity as a people; now you are God’s people.　Once you received no mercy; now you have received God’s mercy."

The words in this passage are very encouraging for a believer. It says we are a chosen people; God in His mercy, chose us. It says we are royal priests; unlike the Israelites of the Old Testament, we can approach God and the throne of grace as a priest because Jesus Christ’s sacrifice had torn the veil of the Temple between mankind and God. As believers, we are God’s own possession; He will not let go of what belongs to Him. In gratitude for what He has done for us, we will want to tell others of how God brought us out of spiritual winter of darkness and death, and into His marvelous light and eternal life. As believers, we can rejoice for we now have an identity as God’s chosen possession, a God who knows us by our name, a name that He has written in the Book of Life from before the foundation of the world. And all of this is because we have received God’s mercy through faith in what his Son, Jesus Christ has done for us, something we could not do for ourselves.

May these words encourage you as they encouraged us during the dark, cold, gloom of winter.