Our Being

Acts 17:28  “For in Him we live and move and have our being”

The gospel message is full of instructions of what we as believers in Jesus Christ are called to do.  We are expected to “go and sin no more”, to “bear one another’s burdens”, to “forgive one another” and to “go into all the world and preach the gospel”. These are only a few of the many things expected of those who have come to call Jesus Christ Lord.  

However, and this is a very big “however”, if we do these things only because we are supposed to, then we are no different from the Pharisees whom Jesus described as “hypocrites”.  The Lord’s plan for our lives is that although we do read and recognize the instructions in scripture that guide us in “the way of righteousness”, it is when our obedience comes not from the formality of the outward command, but from a desire and compulsion within our hearts that we are walking in thre obedience the Lord desires. 

For that compulsion to influence our daily lives, there must be a transformation in our inner being.  We must become that “new creation” that our New Testament faith requires (2 Co.5:17).  We must change, or as Paul writes, we must be “transformed” so that we too might have “the mind of Christ”.  Transformation speaks of not just a change in what we do, but in our very “being”.  Through the love and mercy of Jesus Christ, God has made a way that the very thoughts and attitudes of our hearts can be transformed into the thoughts and attitudes of Christ.  Peter even writes that because of the promises of God, we can “participate in the divine nature” (2 Pe.1:4).   This means that we too can have the inner compulsion to live a life of spirituality and righteous, a life that is pleasing and acceptable to God. 

The Lord is not simply looking for your obedience, He is looking for you to act according to His Word because your inner “being” has been transformed by His love. To the Corinthian church Paul wrote “the love of Christ compels us” (2 Co. 5:14).  His love will compel us when we allow that love to impact our hearts and minds.    

       Our text today reads “for in Him we live and move and have our being”.   When we allow His love to truly transform who we are, then those things that we “live and do”, will become the obedience He desires.  Only when who we are becomes transformed, will the activities of “what we do” be pleasing to God.