You Are in Christ
Day 1 Who Are You — REALLY?: Ephesians 1:1–2
Introduction
When I was serving as a children’s pastor, a young man from our Royal Rangers group caught me between activities at summer camp. “What do I call you?” I must have looked puzzled, because he tried again: “Do I call you Pastor Steve, Commander Steve, or Counselor Steve?”
I laughed and cleared it up for him. But the question stayed with me longer than the moment did. I have a dozen bios, depending on who’s asking. Pastor to some. Commander to others. Coach, dad, friend. Each one true, each one partial. None of them complete.
You have your own list. The job. The relationship status. The city you moved to, or the one you left. The thing you’re proud of, and the thing you hope nobody ever finds. It’s a real profile — accurate, updatable, and never quite enough.
Paul opens this letter by telling his readers something that isn’t on anybody’s profile. Not a new line to add. Something underneath every line.
Scripture
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To God’s holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. — Ephesians 1:1–2
Reflection
What’s Happening in the Text
This is a first-century letter opening, and Paul follows the form: sender, recipients, greeting. But look at what he does inside that form. He doesn’t call himself Paul, formerly of Tarsus, formerly a Pharisee, formerly a man who held coats while Stephen was stoned. He calls himself an apostle “by the will of God.” His identity isn’t built from what he did. It’s built from what was decided about him.
Then he turns to the readers, and does the same thing to them. He doesn’t call them Ephesians. He doesn’t call them the church, or the believers, or the faithful — full stop. He calls them “the faithful in Christ Jesus.” Two words tucked into a greeting most people skim past. In Christ. It’s the first time the phrase appears in the letter. It will not be the last. Paul uses some version of it more than two dozen times before he’s finished. He is telling you, before he tells you anything else, where you actually live.
What This Means for You
Your profile keeps growing. Every year adds a line — a new job, a new address, a new relationship, a new mistake you’re still living down. You’ve probably never introduced yourself as “in Christ.” You’ve introduced yourself as your title, your diagnosis, your divorce, your degree, your worst year — real lines, all of them, and none of them the whole page.
Here’s why that distinction matters more than it sounds like it should: profiles get edited. The job ends. The marriage doesn’t survive. The achievement stops being the thing people remember about you. If any single line of your bio is where you actually live, you are one revision away from not knowing where you live. Because that’s what bios do. They get revised. But Paul isn’t writing to people who have finally curated a profile impressive enough to earn a greeting like this. He’s writing to ordinary believers in a port city, mid-story, unresolved, and he tells them what they’re standing on before he tells them anything else. Not one more line. The page underneath every line.
You are not your profile. You are located in Christ — the one line that was never yours to edit, because it was never really a line at all.
Grace Note
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! — 2 Corinthians 5:17
Not renovated. Not repaired. New. The old profile doesn’t get updated — it’s gone, and the page underneath it was new all along.
Prayer Prompt
Father, I don’t always know where I’m standing. Most days I locate myself in whatever went wrong, or whatever I haven’t gotten right yet — and I forget that isn’t where you put me.
I want to believe “in Christ” is more than a phrase Paul used in a greeting two thousand years ago. I want it to be the page I actually stand on, not just one more line I hope looks good. But if I’m honest, it’s easier to trust the lines I can see — the job, the track record, the thing I’m still trying to prove.
Move me. Not to a better résumé. To the place you already put me before I had one worth mentioning.
I don’t fully understand what it means to live from this instead of toward it. But I’m willing to start standing where you say I already am.
Amen.
Response
1. Written Reflection: List the lines that would appear in your profile right now — job, role, status, whatever’s true today. Then write “in Christ” beneath the list, not as one more line, but as the page it’s written on.
2. Verbal/Read Aloud: Stand in front of a mirror and say out loud, using your own name: “[Your name], the faithful in Christ Jesus.” Say it again. The first time you’ll hear your own voice. The second time you might hear the sentence. The mirror can only show you your profile — say the line anyway.
3. Observational: Today, notice the moment you introduce or describe yourself — out loud or in your head. Just notice which line of your profile you reached for first. Then at the end of your day, tell God what you noticed. Not to explain it or fix it. Just to say it out loud to him.
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© Steve Peschke / This Is The Way