The inner circle...

Are you one of the “inner circle?" Or do you feel like someone who is always on the outside. Where do you fit in? In my life, I have business associates, neighbors, and people with whom I interact on some level… people who are outside of my “inner circle” of friends. Then there are the people I enjoy spending time with… my “inner circle." These are the people I call when I need someone to talk to, share meals with, fellowship with, pray with, invite into my home, and feel at ease with. Some of those friendships last a lifetime, and some are only there for a season. I truly treasure these relationships and consider them worth investing my time and energy in. Then there's my extended family – my mother, and brother, and sisters, and aunts and uncles, and in-laws. They are pretty much a part of my inner circle by default.  Then there are my children. They come before anyone else. They get first dibs on my time, my resources, my prayers, and certainly my energy. I will fight for them, protect them, and lay down my life for them. But there is an inner circle even they are outside of… the covenant relationship with my wife. She knows me at my best and my worst. We accept and embrace each other completely with all of our blemishes and scars and weaknesses. For nearly thirty years we have grown closer through the challenges and triumphs of life. We guard our love and treasure each other above and before anyone. But there is one inner circle we are all invited to… an inner circle that is more precious, more costly, and more valuable than any other. If you are excluded from every other inner circle but are a part of this inner circle, you will have all your soul could long for. I am referring of course to the inner circle of relationship with our Creator,  available to all through the salvific work of Jesus Christ. Just as there is an intimacy I enjoy with my wife – one that is sacred… there is a fidelity of relationship with God that is His alone. Revelation 2:17 tells us “To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no one knows except him who receives it.” God says that he “knit us together” in our mother’s womb. He was intimately involved in forming us. He wrote our very DNA. He knows every hair of our head and has numbered our days. He created us to be in relationship with Him. He invites us to know Him and be known by him in the most intimate relationship. And He promises to those who surrender their lives to His sovereign will… to the overcomers… eternal life. And there will be a name known only to you and God… a secret name… the most exclusive ‘inner circle.” No relationship can fill that void. It belongs to God alone. He alone can satisfy the deepest longing of your soul. For those who enter that inner circle of relationship, you are never alone. So come, enter in… where you are loved completely, known fully, and treasured more than you can possibly comprehend. God loves you. He desires you. He wants to spend eternity with you so much that He sacrificed everything to invite you into the most holy space... into the inner circle.