What?! Summorphos? What is that? We’ll get to that but first, what is a “Life Verse”? I’m sure there are plenty of Christians that aren’t even sure what one is. A Life Verse is a verse in The Bible that means enough to you in your life that you’ve committed it to memory. Life Verses can change and you can have more than one. So, now that we’ve got that out of the way, the next logical question is: What is your Life Verse? I would love to hear yours and encourage you to leave it in the comments. To be fair, I’ll share mine with you and I’ll even explain why it means so much to me. There’s definitely some word study and Bible study in this post so I hope you’re ready…
Romans 8:29 is my Life Verse. No, that’s not a typo as many of you may be familiar with Romans 8:28 which says “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” That in itself is a great verse and I can find meaning in it but for me I crave to know more about my purpose in His Kingdom so that’s why I cling to verse 29 which reads:
“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might become the firstborn among many brothers.” (ESV)
I also like how the NLT version reads: “For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn, with many brothers and sisters.”
Why does that mean so much to me? We’ll get to that, but first let’s break the verse down a little more. Trust me, it’ll make more sense later. The first part is very important. “For those whom he foreknew” means that God knew me (and you) before the world was created. Before our parents even thought about what they might name us, God already knew who we were. To top that off, God had a plan for us before the world was created (“he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son”). Now that’s some serious planning!
So what does it mean to be “conformed to the image of his Son”? The word conformed comes from the Greek word summorphos which means having the same form as another. It is also where the English word “morph” comes from. I don’t know about you, but I’ve watched a lot of Sci-Fi in my life and I think “morphing” is pretty cool. Basically God made us to have a similar likeness to the image of his Son, Jesus. I think that’s even cooler than the morphing in movies but we should keep moving along…
What does it look like to be similar to Jesus? That answer could be it’s own blog post, so for the sake of not rambling on, let me try and make this quick and painless. We were all created in God’s image (ref Gen 1:27). Jesus was a man born to a woman (ref Mat 1:18-25). Therefore, Jesus was also made in the image of God. And, the image of God is love (ref 1 Joh 4:8). So, simply we are to love. Sounds a little cheesy right? I like the way it’s written in Ephesians 2:10: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (ESV) We are all created to do “good works”. Naturally this would be considered love.
Finally, the last part of the verse “in order that he might become the firstborn among many brothers” let’s me know that I am not alone. You are not alone. We are not alone. This, in essence, is what The Church is all about. As believers in Christ we can all take comfort in knowing that God knew us before the world was created. God had a purpose for each and every one of us. Our purpose is to continually strive to do good things for others out of love. This love will not only bring us all together and unite us, but it will also glorify our perfect example, Jesus Christ, and in turn glorify God.
My past was filled with the uneasiness of not knowing what my real purpose was. I cannot even begin to count the times I wondered about what life even meant. The day I gave my life up to Jesus, that changed. Am I sitting here writing this to you as a perfect man now? Absolutely not…not even close, but I am a changed man. That’s why Romans 8:29 means so much to me. I am no longer anxious about my purpose, for I finally know what it is– and I find comfort in knowing that I will continue to change because that is God’s plan for me. My hope for you is that you also will continue to do good works for those around you and in doing so you realize that you are becoming more like Christ.
-Chad Booher from Constant in the Change