Perception is everything. People are who you think they are; and, if they are not, they will be very soon and quite quickly. A stranger you want as a friend quickly becomes your friend; likewise, if you want that person to be an enemy, he or she quickly becomes your enemy. Similarly, you can make a friend become a stranger and he or she will be just that: a stranger. Unfortunately, a person cannot dictate to you whom he or she is, because in our own minds, these categories are created and distinctions held. For example, your own consciousness can become a stranger even to yourself. So when we find people who are not alien to us, we embrace them and count our blessings. We should realize, however, that we have already made a decision regarding who they are, to us. So I ask you, “who am I, to you?” Better yet: who are we, to God? So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God… – Ephesians 2:19 Let me frame this passage up for you. Paul writes, “remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world” (v12). This is to say that we ONCE were hopeless, alienated, marginalized and worthless. If Christ is not a savior to you at the moment, then you are these things I just mentioned. Not because Christ perceives you to be those qualities, but because you are already these things to yourself and you haven’t been perceived, by anybody else, yet. Remember, we are what others perceive us to be; and, if the creator hasn’t perceived us to be members of His household, we are exactly what He created us out of– dirt! Jesus wanted to perceive us as something more than the dirt by which He created us, so He came and preached peace to us who were far away (v17). When I say that Jesus preached “peace,” I’m saying that he lifted his perceptions about us, and our perceptions about Him, to be equal. Not that we are equals with God, but that with the love He gives us, we can return unto Him and unto others whom we’d once perceived as dirt. He shifts the paradigm of how we see other people. Jesus redefines our identities by making us more than beasts that live to die. To Jesus, we become family, and are allowed a home in our Father’s house and to be God’s beloved child. This is who we are to God. Will you embrace who you are?
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