There is a time for everything under heaven (Ecclesiastes 3:1). But I want to just say: now is the time for faithful obedience. Just in case that’s news to any of us.
It’s also worth saying: some things are in our control, and some things aren’t. We need to pray for discernment to know which is which, wisdom to do well what we can, and faith to obey to the end.
So on that note, today holds an exhortation. Please forgive my presumptuousness in paraphrasing and loosely amplifying 1 Peter 2:1–10, below. I think paraphrasing and amplifying is a great exercise when you’re reading something to truly understand and remember, and I thought you might be interested in this attempt — though I ask you to distinguish which words and concepts I have added or amplified (which I’ve done where I think it helpful and in keeping with the Spirit of the original), and which words are Peter’s original exhortations…
Put It Away
Today, I urge you to deliberately and emphatically remove from your life — both your public life and your private life — any evil whatsoever. Think about it — what falls into that category for you? These are often things that might have an underlying kernel of goodness, perhaps even a justifiable motivation, but which through selfishness, distrust of God, and perversion of truth, become twisted — out of line, in method OR result, with God’s love for all people and His purpose for the world. The heart behind this often involves hypocrisy — it is all too easy to self-justify compromise and double standards, deceiving ourselves and others. It is easy to fall into the trap of envy, ultimately stemming from a distrust that God’s justice is flawless, that His will is Good, that His way is right, and that His timing is perfect. When we do these things we slander the Name and Power and Glory and Goodness of God, and of His people, bringing the character and trustworthiness of God into disrepute, and we carry His Name in vain.
Pure Spiritual Milk
But that’s not for us. Instead, we must be like newborn infants yearning for pure, spiritual milk. We should be keen and eager to receive sound teaching in line with the scriptures that God has faithfully preserved for us, delighting and satisfied in the pure message of the good news about Jesus that leads to salvation, greater righteousness, becoming more in step with the Spirit of God, unblemished by selfish, ulterior motives, human power structures, unaccounted-for biases and faulty hermeneutics.
Through constant, insatiable drinking of this wonderful truth of the gospel, meditation on it, and consistent, genuinely self-sacrificial decisions, we may be transformed — growing into people who are being saved, by Jesus’ kindness and grace, and receiving hearts of flesh and filled with the spirit of God to do His will.
This may mean rejection. Even as we reject the ways of the world, we will be rejected.
The Cornerstone
Jesus led the way for us in this — established as the Cornerstone of this Church from which everything is built square and true. He is the head of this body which was rejected by men but which is chosen and precious in God’s sight.
In the same way, as we follow Jesus, we too are like stones, being built together, one next to the other, encouraging and building each other up, even as we are — both individually and corporately — made into a Spirit-filled house, chosen and precious in God’s sight.
We are thus the very temple of God in which God’s life-giving energy, power, personal presence and active impact on the world lives. We are also like the holy priests offering sacrifices in that very temple — not sacrificing the blood of goats, or ticking the box of a weekly tithe, or even trying to do the right thing most of the time, but offering our entire self — our body, mind, life and spirit — as a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God through Jesus Christ.
“Look, I lay in Zion a stone, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and whoever believes in him will never be put to shame.” — Isaiah 28:16
My brothers and sisters, if you have believed the message about Jesus being Messiah, you understand His value. You see what He has done. You recognise the cosmic significance of His sacrifice for our sins and his elevation to God’s right hand as the King of the Universe both in this age and the next. So believe! And since it’s truly truth, you will never be put to shame; not really, not forever. You may be ridiculed by humans, but in God’s sight you are chosen and precious and on the side of truth and obedience.
But for those who do not believe, this wild story of Jesus’ death and resurrection is a stumbling-stone and a rock to trip over. They stumble ultimately because they are disobedient. They disobey the word and wisdom and instruction of God, as they were destined to do — there were always going to be disobedient people in a population of humans with free will. And all who reject Him and disobey Him do so by choice, joining the ranks of the disobedient, and are held accountable accordingly.
A People Set Apart
Yet we, my brothers and sisters, are not disobedient. We’re different.
We are a new, chosen race of people — no longer divided by ethnic or cultural or racial lines as defined by humans.
We are a royal priesthood, serving directly under the Royal Chief Priest, able to approach the holy place of God’s presence as God’s royal children, and called to represent God to all the people of the world, following in the footsteps of that one mediator between God and man — the man Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 2:5).
We are a holy nation, not beholden to one government or another, not divided by geographical or political divides, but belonging and subordinate to the one true Lord, Jesus. We needn’t get bogged down in the world’s intrigue and drama like the rest; we’ve got more to live for. We can rise above and make a difference in the world, using our gifts, abilities, and unique placement in the world without getting caught up in the lies and short-sighted speculation of its power structures and miserly struggles for significance.
We are a people set apart for God’s own possession — his special people in whom he delights; we are his children, for whom a new creation has been inaugurated, and we’re intimately connected to the source of life and love and joy.
We have been called out of the darkness and tyranny of this world, with its deception, its sin, perversion and ultimate death — into the kingdom of light, of life, of truth, of justice, of eternity. And this is so that you may proclaim the virtues and excellence and power and majesty and glory of God — the Father of us all, who sent His unique and beloved Son, His Messiah, His faithful Servant, the Snake crushing King of the world, the Best Boss you could hope for.
We were once divided, with no true calling, having lost our identity and scattered across the earth. But now we are part of something bigger. Much Bigger. Cosmic.
We are God’s people.
We were once without God’s mercy, wailing and perishing in darkness and death. But now we have received God’s divine hesed — his always-loving, faithful mercy and kindness — shown to us through our Lord Jesus. Hallelujah!