But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy (1 Peter 2:9–10).

You are special. We all want to hear those words (in some form) from our boss, teacher, parents, spouse, children, etc. For some of us, this is our primary goal in life. And here God says them to us. He tells us how special we are to him.

How wonderful! Yet, he doesn’t tell us this to give us an ego boost or to help our self-esteem. He points this out because it comes with a purpose, a mission: to proclaim his glory, to tell people how wonderful he is.

The longest word in Shakespeare is honorificabilitudinitatibus (Love’s Labor Lost, Act V, Scene 1). It means the state of being able to achieve honor or honorableness. Our specialness, our identity in Christ, is found not in something inherent to us but in his honor.

So we live out our specialness by proclaiming his honorificabilitudinitatibus, his excellencies, his glory. As his people, his own possession, we are to put before the world not how amazing we are but the glory and wonder, the grace and mercy, the love and perfection of God in Jesus Christ. Our speech and our lives are to attract them to him like moths to a porch light on a warm summer’s eve.

Prayer:
Lord, you alone are worthy of glory. Your excellencies alone should be the content of our praise. Forgive us for proclaiming our excellencies instead of yours. May our lives, what we do, and what we say attract all who see us to you and you alone.