We Are Not Of This World

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When our blessed Lord spoke those luminous words, "You people are from below; I am from above. You people are from this world; I am not from this world" (John 8:23), He was expressing a sense of belonging that transcends every experience, every attachment, and every fleeting treasure we may ever know on this mortal side of eternity.

Christ is, eternally and essentially, from above; and thus, by the sheer, unmerited election of grace, are we, the adopted children of God, also declared to be. To receive into our hearts the declaration of His subsequent testimony, "but I have chosen you out of the world, that is why the world hates you," is to realize how incomparably special the believer is held in the discerning eyes of the Almighty.

In this divine transaction, God the Father offers nothing less than the entirety of who He is, manifesting His full being in the person of the most valuable treasure in all of heaven—the promised Messiah, Christ Jesus. This is the highest demonstration of divine love: to extract a poor, fallen soul from the vanity of the visible world and to confer upon it an eternal citizenship in the realm above. The cost of this election was infinite, and the resulting honor bestowed upon the elect is beyond all earthly measure.

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