Identify: Called Out

By Clifton Angel       One who has been baptized into Christ is one who is risen with Christ and has been added to His church by Him (cf. Acts 2:37–47; Colossians 1:13). To belong to Christ’s church, is to belong to the “called out” (literal meaning of the Greek term translated “church” or “assembly”). Far too many of my brethren ignorantly say, "I'm Church of Christ." While we certainly are His church and should be identified as such, the statement is often made the very same way a member of a denomination would label himself as a Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, et al. Seeing ourselves as just another denomination, or a different road to the same heaven, is an "identity crisis." One who seeks to be among the church that Jesus built, must believe the inspired words concerning her.     Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus that God... “...hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all" (Ephesians 1:22–23). The church of Christ is referred to as Christ's body, and He is the head. "For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the ... Savior of the body" (Ephesians 5:23).     Incidentally, anyone who is outside of the body of Christ is not saved by Him. Again, to the church at Colossae, Paul wrote, "He is the head of the body, the church" (Colossians 1:18). At Ephesians 4:4, we learn "There is one body." In his letter to the church at Corinth, Paul wrote, "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free" (1 Corinthians 12:12–13).     Church, do we know who we are? Christians, are we suffering from an "identity crisis"? Have we forgotten Who made us? Have we forgotten Who saved us? Have we forgotten Who raised us? Have we forgotten Who placed us? Let us return to His Word, where we learn that we are created in His image, we are risen with Christ, and we are the church of Christ.

- Clifton Angel preaches for the Coldwater Church of Christ in Coldwater, MS. He may be contacted through that congregation's website: http://www.coldwatercofc.com/