Finding Your True HomeSample

The Household of God

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God. (v. 19 NRSV)

The apostle Paul speaks of redemption in terms of home construction. We are all members of the household of God. And this expansive house has as its firm foundation the good work of the apostles and prophets, with none other than Jesus Christ as the cornerstone, the stone without which no sound building can be built.

Furthermore, in Christ the beams and timbers, the bricks and mortar, are all carefully joined into a single building set apart for service to God. This house, this one body of Jews and gentiles alike, is the home of God—the place where God is present and people meet God. In Trinitarian fashion, Paul speaks of Christ as the one in whom all (gentiles and Jews) are built together through the Spirit into a dwelling place of God. The church constitutes the home of God, a home in which the humanly constructed barriers of race and ethnicity, age and gender, are reconstructed.

So homebreakers become homemakers because Christ is our peace. Aliens become citizens because of what Christ has done on the cross. The despairing become filled with hope because they are in Christ. We all are full members of the household of God. --Steven Bouma-Prediger

As you pray, ask the God of grace to help you remember that we all are members of your one household of faith.