You Are That Nation, Church

“Blessed is that nation, whose God is the Lord: even the people that He hath chosen for His inheritance...behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear Him, and upon them that trust in His mercy, our soul waiteth for the Lord: for He is our help and our shield. Surely our heart shall rejoice in Him, because we trusted in His holy Name. Let Thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, as we trusted in Thee” (Psalm 33:12,18,20-22, Geneva Bible).

Church, God has, by His blood (Acts 20:28), redeemed us from “every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation” (Revelation 5:9). We are that blessed “nation,” that “people that He hath chosen for His inheritance.”

“Having purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit, to love brotherly without feigning, love one another with a pure heart fervently: Being born anew, not of mortal seed, but of immortal, by the Word of God, Who liveth and endureth forever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower falleth away. But the Word of the Lord endureth forever: and this is the Word which is preached among you. Wherefore, laying aside all maliciousness, and all guile, and dissimulation, and envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes desire that sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby, because ye have tasted that the Lord is bountiful. To Whom coming as unto a living stone, disallowed of men, but chosen of God and precious, ye also as lively stones, be made a spiritual house, an holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ...ye are a chosen generation, a royal Priesthood, an holy nation [Exodus 19:5,6], a people set at liberty, that ye should show forth the virtues of Him that hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light, which in time past were not a people, yet are now the people of God: which in time past were not under mercy, but now have obtained mercy” (1 Peter 1:22-25; 2:1-5,9,10).

The Exodus quote, originally applied to that single race, that lone nation in the old covenant, is now applied to the “strangers that dwell here and there...elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father unto sanctification of the Spirit, through obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:1), the gathered “pilgrims” (2:11) who are the Church, that most blessed “nation” on the earth whose God is the new covenant God of the Bible through the only Mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ, sealed and preserved by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Give thanks for this grace and blessing this day and every day, forever and ever.