Ephesians 2:12-16, 19 NIV “remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household,” https://bible.com/bible/111/eph.2.12-19.NIV

There is only one people of God. It is all those, but only those who are related to Jesus Christ, God the Savior. The people of God are all people from every tribe and tongue who have repented from rebellion against the One True God and turned to Jesus by faith in His work alone to pay for our rebellion and appropriate to us the righteousness God requires for salvation. The people of God are all those, but only those who love God by obeying everything Jesus has commanded, depending upon the life of God living within them, the Holy Spirit, to empower them to live lives pleasing to God. There is no other religion, no other means for pleasing God and escaping His judgment of condemnation beyond Jesus the Judge, Ruler, and Savior of the world. God has made Himself known to the world generally through creation and our conscience. God began to reveal Himself specifically through a people He chose for Himself, Israel. Now God has fully revealed Himself through Jesus and requires all people to come to Him alone for reconciliation, having established the New Covenant, God’s new world operating system, by His blood shed on the cross. All people who claim Jesus as their Savior and Lord are to live as brothers and sisters, loving one another and working together to share the work of Jesus for humanity among all nations. Persecution will come because of our insistence, because it is God’s insistence, that no other Name under heaven has been given to humanity for reconciling them to God except Jesus the Savior. This is God’s way, this is God’s will for all of us: to love Him through loving Jesus, God Himself, fully man, Who loves us and gave His life for us, rising from the dead to prove to us that He is indeed the Savior, Lord, and Judge of all the earth.

RUN TODAY’S PLAY: live as peacemakers and proclaim that true belonging to God comes only through the cross of Christ.