“Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.” (Colossians 3:11)
Band geek. Brainiac. Hispanic. Teacher’s pet. Jock. Preppy. Church kid. Dyslexic. Autistic. Poor. Princess. Black. White. Rich. Baptist. Evangelical. Good girl. Bad boy. Fat. Skinny. Popular. Nobody. Bus kid.
We’ve got a lot of ways of identifying ourselves and each other. Some labels we put on ourselves. Others get stuck on us – or we stick on other people. Paul wants Christians to ditch them. He listed a bunch of labels from his culture and said they don’t apply to those who are in Christ.
To be in him means to trade in all of our other identifiers. Other people may still throw them our way, but we refuse to catch them, to be labeled by any other name but his. He is the most important part of us.
Think: What labels are you stuck with that bother you? Which ones are you proud of? What will it cost you to stop identifying yourself by those labels and start identifying yourself first and above all by having Christ in you?
Pray: Thank God that your most important identity is being in Christ.
Do: Make a list of cultural labels that would describe you. Then cross them all out and write “in Christ” at the bottom of the list.