Every day I spend time reading. Reading is part of who I am. I read at the breakfast table. You can find various bookmarks in many nooks and crannies of our house. My bag contains at least one book that I am currently reading, just in case I have a spare minute to squeeze in one more page. My job also centers around reading. I am a reader. It is part of my identity, and I have no qualms about sharing this with anyone I meet.
I am also a follower of Christ, but for some reason, I have more trouble with this part of my identity. It has taken some serious introspection and study to grasp the idea that Christ chose me. Some days it is difficult for me to believe that a holy God made a way for broken, self-deprecating me to be called his child. I know what I have done. I know what I have said. I know what I have thought. How can I know that I am chosen? Ephesians 1 fills in the details:
All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.
— Ephesians 1:3–5
Our Father united us with him through Christ. He knew every way that we were going to disappoint him through sin, and he chose to create us. Not only did he choose to create us, but he also gave us Christ, who sacrificed himself for us. This makes Christ’s followers faultless in our Father’s eyes. Again, our Father goes a step more than we deserve. He didn’t just unite us with Christ. Our Father was more than happy to do this for us. This is love. This is the love that can only come from our heavenly Father, Emmanuel, God with us.