"Help yourself, you know where everything is," her friend says for the second time, already turning away to let somebody else in, and she says thank you, and does not move.
The house-warming has spilled out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Somebody's toddler is being passed over heads. There is a bowl of something with pomegranate on it that people keep coming back for, and a man she half knows is telling a story by the fridge with a wooden spoon in his hand for emphasis, and the door of the fridge is open behind him and nobody minds. People are opening cupboards. A woman she has never met has taken off her shoes and is sitting on the counter. That is the kind of house it is, and that is the kind of friend who owns it, and she was invited, properly, by name, weeks ago.
And she is in the hallway with her coat still on.
She has a plate somebody handed her, with what somebody chose. She has not opened a cupboard. She would not know how to reach past the man with the spoon into the fridge for a drink, and she has been thirsty for twenty minutes. She is not shy, exactly. It is more that some part of her has never once in her life believed that help yourself was addressed to her, and so she stands in hallways, and lets people bring her a plate, and goes home early with her coat still done up, and calls it not wanting to be any trouble.
She noticed something about herself on the way here, in the car, and it has been sitting in her chest since. If you asked her what she was saved from, she could tell you. She could tell you precisely, in a sentence, with the old life in it and the day it turned; she has told it in a small group and once at a kitchen table to a cousin. Saved from. She has that sentence word perfect. But standing in this hall it occurred to her that she has never once heard, or asked, or been able to say, the other half. Saved into what. Rescued out of a place, yes. Brought into what, exactly? And she realized that the picture in her head, when she tries to see it, is this hallway. Coat on. Plate she did not choose. Grateful to be in the building, and not one step further in than the door.
If that is you, I want to say the first thing very slowly, because on this site I am not permitted to tell you what you are, and I would not want to. What I am going to do is what Scripture does, which is describe the house. Not the door you came in by, which you know by heart, but the rooms. Because the gospel has two halves and most people only ever hear the first, and a person who has only heard the first will stand in the hall for the rest of their life, thanking God for the door.
No longer a stranger
Let me name the pit exactly, because it is a strange one and it hides. This is not the pit of not being saved. The door is not in question. What was never handed to you is a picture of the inside, and so the furnishing was left to you, and the furniture you chose is a hallway: a guest's posture, a guest's gratitude, a guest's careful not-touching. Rescued into a place and treating it as somebody else's house, which makes a faith polite, and tired, and a little lonely, without ever saying why.
Here is why. Nobody read you the second half.
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.Ephesians 2:19
Paul is writing to people who had been, in his own words a few lines earlier, strangers to the covenants, without hope, without God in the world. That is the from, and he does not skip it. But watch where the sentence lands. Not: you are now permitted on the premises. Not: you have been let in and may stand quietly by the door. Members of the household. Household is a word with rooms in it, and a table, and a name over the door, and people who open the fridge, and the Spirit who breathed that word through Paul chose it on purpose.
You are named in that sentence, everyone in Christ is, and I am not pronouncing on you; I am reading what is written, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes a written line about a household and turns it into the sound of your own name being said in the kitchen. No longer a stranger is not a feeling I am asking you to work up. It is a status Paul reports, past tense, done, and the Spirit's job is to make the report land in a hallway.
Household is a word with rooms in it
I keep a shelter, and I know the exact difference between a bed and a home, because I watch it every week. A shelter bed is a rescue. It is real, it is warm, it saves lives, and a person in it says thank you and keeps their bag packed by their feet. A home is where you stop asking. You know which cupboard the mugs are in. You put the kettle on for other people. Nobody says help yourself, because it would be a strange thing to say to a member of the household. And the whole work of the wing I keep is not the rescue, which happens at the door. It is the long, slow work of a rescued person discovering they were brought into a family, and finally taking their coat off.
Scripture says God did that on purpose. Not out, and then left in the porch. Out, and into.
And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.Galatians 4:6-7
Read what is yours by that verse, and it is not a list of duties. The Spirit of the Son in you, saying Father from the inside; that is the household's own voice, and it is in your chest. The standing of a son and not a servant; that is who is allowed to open the fridge. Heir; that is whose the house is. None of that is the door. All of it is the inside.
You have those things now, in the present tense, not once you have relaxed and not once you have earned a room, and it is the word that says so and His Spirit who says Abba in you as the proof that you are in the house and not on the step. And I will say plainly what this page is not: it is not telling you to join something. The household of God is God's, and it is bigger than any building, and you were made a member of it by Him and not by signing anything. Whether and where you eat with other members of it is a good question and it is not this page's question. This page is about taking your coat off.
Here is the turn, and it is not toward the door, because you already have the door. It is toward the kitchen.
You were not only rescued; you were brought in, and that is not my kindness to you, it is what is written of every person in Christ, no longer strangers, members of the household, sons and heirs, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is even now saying Father in you from the inside, which is not a thing a guest can do. A guest says thank you. A child says Abba. The sound in your chest is the second one, and it has been there since the door.
So the sentence has two halves and you are allowed the second. Saved from. And saved into: a household, a table, a name, a Father, an inheritance, and a fridge you may open. Say the second half. It is the one you have never said.
You are a member of the household of God, and it is already your status and not your ambition, and the second half was true through every year you only said the first. It is written that you are no longer a stranger, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says Abba in a person standing in a hallway with their coat still on.
Declare this over yourself
Speak these out loud, in the hall, in the car park, at your own kitchen table. You are in Christ and Christ is in you, and the standing to describe your own place in His house was given to you with the house; it does not rest on how confident you feel among the people in it. Scripture is the ground under each line and the Holy Spirit is the one carrying it, not the steadiness of your voice. What God does with the feeling of belonging, and how long it takes to catch up with the fact, is His to decide, in His own way, and none of it changes the deed. Speak to the hallway, then to the fear, then to Him.
- Hallway I have stood in with my coat on, you are not where I live, and I am walking past you into the house. It is written that I am no longer a stranger or a foreigner but a member of the household of God, and household is a word with rooms in it.
- Habit of waiting at the door of my own house, you were learned somewhere and I hand you back in the name of Jesus. Scripture says I am no longer a servant but a child, and if a child then an heir, and His Spirit says Abba in me, which is not a sound a guest can make.
- Lord, You did not rescue me into a porch, You brought me into Your family, and You are the Father in the kitchen. I thank You, because Your Spirit says Father in me now, exactly as Your word promises, and I am naming one thing that is mine by belonging and taking my coat off in Your house.
Ephesians 2:19
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