Hidden Grace

“For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:3 NASV).

Children often have a hiding place. Maybe a room in their house or a closet in a bedroom. Maybe a place high up in a tree or behind a lilac bush in the corner of the yard. It is their own special place to be alone with their own thoughts and imaginations.

The Scriptures tell us that children of God have a special place to hide. It is a place where personal identity is swallowed up by the identity of being “in Christ.” It is a place of refuge where personal ambition succumbs to Christ’s Lordship.

We are hidden away that his glorious personage might be revealed. We die, the apostle tells us, so that we can shelter ourselves in him. Being hidden in Christ we are joined to Almighty God.

Through unfathomable grace we are lost in him who is our salvation. Having been hidden in Christ’s death and resurrection we find unending mercy and grace to walk in newness of life. We hide in him from our sinfulness to take on his righteousness by the continuous washing away of our transgressions (1 John 1:9).

We are concealed in him being plunged beneath his precious blood of redemption. We lose ourselves in him by eating his body and drinking his blood in the hidden place of prayer, finding sustaining life for our souls (John 6:53).

We hide in him from our own fallenness as his resurrected life transforms us. His mind becomes our mind, and his heart becomes our heart as we remain in that blessed hiding place.

We are buried as dead men in his love so that his love may awaken us to be loving servants. Having died with him we can now truly live as his servants of grace and love.

Grace abounds for our remaining fallenness as we find ourselves ever lost in him. As we conceal ourselves in the Savior the world sees him in all his glory shining through us.

We hide in the Son of God so that he might again walk the earth through our humble and hidden lives. We are concealed in him to point every longing, searching heart not to ourselves but to him who is the answer to every human longing and the solution to every human distress.