A Chosen Race, a Holy People

Covenant with God

Called into Covenant with God

God's Covenant with Israel

1 Peter 2:1-10 The Message

2 1-3 So clean house! Make a clean sweep of malice and pretense, envy and hurtful talk. You’ve had a taste of God. Now, like infants at the breast, drink deep of God’s pure kindness. Then you’ll grow up mature and whole in God.

The Stone

4-8 Welcome to the living Stone, the source of life. The workmen took one look and threw it out; God set it in the place of honor. Present yourselves as building stones for the construction of a sanctuary vibrant with life, in which you’ll serve as holy priests offering Christ-approved lives up to God. The Scriptures provide precedent:
Look! I’m setting a stone in Zion,
    a cornerstone in the place of honor.
Whoever trusts in this stone as a foundation
    will never have cause to regret it.
To you who trust him, he’s a Stone to be proud of, but to those who refuse to trust him,
The stone the workmen threw out
    is now the chief foundation stone.
For the untrusting it’s
. . . a stone to trip over,
    a boulder blocking the way.
They trip and fall because they refuse to obey, just as predicted.
9-10 But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God’s instruments to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for you—from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted.

For Reflection Pray

Salvation in the here and now is not an end state, but, rather, a process of maturing in your response to God's love.  The Stone, once rejected, lives. Christ is the cornerstone of our Christian faith. Upon Christ is placed the anchor for all belief and action.  A stumbling block for the Godless, Christ is the stepping stone into righteous living.

Pray

Pray so that you will live up to the priestly work with which God has entrusted you.  Pray and feed on the word of God.