Tuesday, June 03,
2014, 7:55 a.m. – the Lord Jesus put the song in mind, “I Sing of His Mercy.” Speak, Lord, your words to my heart. I read 1 Peter 2 (NIV).
That You May Grow Up
Therefore,
rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of
every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you
may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
When we are born physically, we must rely upon others to
take care of us and to give us the nourishment that we need. So, we are
completely dependent upon the one (or more) who supply us with the milk we need
in order to survive. We don’t try to go our own way and to try to find our own
food sources, because we can’t. We know instinctively that milk is what we
need, and that is what we crave; and it is what we cry out for until we get it.
And, when it is put before us, we drink it in wholeheartedly and with great enthusiasm
until we are satisfied and have our bellies filled. The feeding of the milk,
though, not only satisfies our hunger and thirst, but it gives us much comfort,
as well, for we are held in someone’s arms and are held closely to the breast,
and so we feel much love, comfort and joy, too. [I know not all babies
experience this, but this should be the norm, I believe.]
So, when we are being encouraged here to get rid of all
these various types of sins (and more) in our lives, and to crave pure
spiritual milk, like newborn babies, so that we may grow up into our salvation,
what is this saying? I believe that if we could grasp the spiritual parallels
here between that of a newborn baby and ourselves, such as was the parallel
between our Christian walks and that of a new bride walking down the aisle to
be with her husband forever (yesterday’s lesson), I think it will help us
understand better what this means. For, when we come to faith in Jesus Christ,
we are born again, not physically, but spiritually. The old is gone – our old
ways of living for sin and self – and the new has come – the ability to now
walk in Christ’s righteousness and holiness. We should realize our absolute
dependence upon Jesus Christ – Almighty God – and we should no longer crave the
sinful desires of our old flesh, but we should crave the unadulterated word of
God.
We should not wander off to other sources of nourishment,
i.e. we should not follow after this teaching or that philosophy or vision or
missions of humans, based upon humanistic thinking and reasoning. We should not
try to find our satisfaction and joy in life in the things this sinful world
has to offer us. But we should crave (long for) the pure, unadulterated word of
God, i.e. we should cry out for it, thirst for it, and be satisfied only with
its nourishment and comfort. And, when we are given the untainted word of God
to drink in, we should do so with great enthusiasm, and to do so
wholeheartedly, longing to hear from our Lord, and to know his will and
purposes for our lives, so that we can follow him, and so we can grow in our
walks with him, so we don’t remain spiritual infants our whole lives. And, it
is there, in the arms of Jesus, in drinking in his pure (untainted by humans) word,
that we should find satisfaction, nourishment, comfort and joy for our lives.
The Living Stone
As
you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and
precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual
house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God
through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says:
“See,
I lay a stone in Zion,
a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and
the one who trusts in him
will never be put to shame.”
Now
to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,
“The
stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone,”
and,
“A
stone that causes people to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall.”
They
stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined
for.
Christ Jesus is the rock upon which the church is built. He
is our foundation. He is the keystone or the central stone which holds the
whole structure together. He is the core, the heart, the center, and the foundation,
through whom we come into being, and by whom we are given new birth, and in
whom and in whose power and grace we are able to grow in our walks with the
Lord to maturity. He is not dead, but alive, and he is living within those who
are truly his. So we, as his offspring, are also living stones, i.e. we are
part of this building, his church, but not a building built with human hands, but
a spiritual building built on the foundation of Christ and his word, and the
teachings of the apostles and prophets.
As we are continually coming to him, not just when we
initially made the decision to accept his invitation to his gift of grace - his
love offering for us on the cross when he died for our sins so we could go free
from slavery to sin and eternal damnation, and so we could walk in his righteousness
and holiness - but daily and continuously coming to him, we are being built (made)
into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood. So, what does that mean?
A priest, for one, was one who made sacrifices for the
people’s sins to God, but now Jesus Christ is our high priest, so we no longer
have to have a human priest make sacrifices for us. Now we are all priests,
i.e. now we can all, through faith in Jesus Christ, enter into the inner
sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, and we can offer our lives as living sacrifices,
holy and pleasing to God, which is our reasonable service of worship to him
(See Ro. 12:1-2) – no longer conformed to the ways of this world, but
transformed of the Spirit in the renewing of our minds. We are to become a holy
priesthood, though, set apart from the world, and set apart to God and to his
service and to his will for our lives. Repentance and obedience, not to a set
of rules, but to our Lord Jesus Christ and to his word (his teachings), because
we love him, are spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God. With these he is
pleased.
A Royal Priesthood
But
you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special
possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of
darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are
the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Dear
friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires,
which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that,
though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify
God on the day he visits us…
So, what is the crux of all this? Coming to Christ, not just
once but daily, involves ridding our lives of all sinful behaviors. We can’t
hunger and thirst after the desires of our flesh and after God, too. The two
don’t mix. Then, we must crave (hunger for) the untainted word of God, i.e.
that which is, as close as possible, true to the original meaning he intended
when he commissioned his servants to write those words. We need to guard
against relying upon books written by mere humans to tell us what God’s word
says, but we must be students of the word ourselves, trusting the Spirit of God
to speak its truths into our lives. And, we must offer our lives to God as
living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to him, set apart from the world of sin,
and set apart to God and to his service – to follow him wherever he leads.
And, then we should declare the praises of him who called us
out of darkness into his wonderful light. I wish everyone who professes the
name of Christ would truly grasp what all this is saying, and how it applies to
our lives. Darkness is sin. It is evil. We are called of God, not just so we
can go to heaven one day, but we are called out of sin, to be delivered from
slavery to sin while we still walk the face of this earth. Amen! And, we are
called into walks of faith in his righteousness and holiness, and into his
truth. Hallelujah! Praise Jesus! I am not only bound for heaven, but I have
been set free from the control of sin over my life in the here and now, and I
am free to obey him and to walk in his holiness, living a life pleasing to him.
That is my desire! I am so grateful for his mercy, not just in forgiving me of
my sins so I don’t have to spend eternity in hell, but that he has freed me
from that old life and has given me a completely new life in him. There is no
other way to live!
I Sing of His Mercy
/ An Original Work
Based off Psalm 32 /
April 10, 2014
Blessed are those
whose sins are forgiven
By the blood of Jesus
Christ.
Blessed is the one
whose sin the Lord does
Not count against
them; freedom found.
When, in silence, I
did not confess
My sin to You; had no
strength.
Then I owned up to my
sin and
You forgave and
cleansed me within.
Therefore let the
godly pray to You;
Draw near to You;
grace they’ll find.
They will not be
o’ertaken by afflictions,
But in Christ peace
abounds.
Lord, You are my
hiding place.
I find my refuge in
You secure.
You protect me from
all evil.
You give songs of
vict’ry in You.
Lord, You teach me to
walk in Your ways;
Counsel me in love, I
know.
Help me to not be
stubborn and
Unwilling to follow in
Your truth.
Thank You for Your
love and mercy.
I put my trust in You
always.
I rejoice in my Lord
and
I sing of Him
throughout all my days.
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