Walk into any Christian bookstore and you'll find an assortment of t-shirts with pink, flower, and/or frills labeling the wearer a "princess...because I'm the daughter of the king of kings..." or some other similarly sassy saying. I have attended and lead retreats for girls and women where this is highlighted. We as ladies are in a constant search for who we are, what defines us, what we're really made of. What is our worth? Whose are we?
"So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir." Galatians 4:7
Princess. Heiress. Chosen. These are the words that come to mind. And they are true for all intensive purposes. As Christians and women (young and old), we are in fact daughters of the one true King. He is God of gods and Lord of lords. To know Him is to know eternal life (John 17:3) and he has kept for us an inheritance that does not fade or perish (1 Peter 1).
My concern in so many conversations swirling around this topic is the response we as believers have to these things. We respond with a sassy sense of entitlement. I am a princess. I deserve this...not that. I should be treated this way...not that way. You should attend to my needs. I should feel comfortable. I should be praised. My ego should be pet, my beauty acknowledged, and my friendship appreciated. We are sorely disappointed when all of our needs are not met and we are left wanting. We become sassy and ungrateful. Our hearts make a quick shift to pride, arrogance, entitlement, and self-centeredness.
I have struggled with this.
I know that Christ has chosen me. I know that this gives me worth. (Notice - this gives me worth, does not mean I had worth to begin with). I have in many conversations kept silent because my heart could not reconcile the reality that I deserve death, wrath, and condemnation...but I'm deserving of a crown?
The truth of the matter is that somewhere in our sassy t-shirts and sayings we've missed the Gospel. We've missed that we are only heirs with Christ because He saw fit to save the wretched, grimy, two-faced, unfaithful, adulteress of a people we see all throughout the Old Testament. I challenge you to read through Hosea or Jeremiah without seeing a glimpse of your own heart.
We were condemned. We were broken. We had no worth in ourselves. BUT, the God who created us and formed us for His glory, appreciation, honor, and praise saw fit to call us out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2). NONE of that was my strength. I did nothing. I could not have saved myself. I needed rescue. I was destitute, dirty, undeserving of any good thing. I deserved wrath...but God chose me. This is my only entitlement, my only honor, my only glory - that the God of the universe saw fit to give me a crown.
"But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom we poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life." Titus 3:4-7
As daughters of the one true King, may our posture be not that of an earthly princess. In fact, the King of whose inheritance we share was the most humble, homely, selfless man to ever walk this earth. He suffered greatly so that He would be glorified and that we would be ransomed.
"And Jesus called them to him and said to them, "You know that those whoa re considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." Mark 10:42-45
As his heiresses, we are to share in his sufferings (Read the book of Hebrews) so that we are more like him. We are to be humble, gracious, servants whose hearts respond first in thankfulness and never in arrogant entitlement. May we be, by the Holy Spirit and the washing of the word (Ephesians 5) like the very king who made us to be heirs...to be princesses.
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