Lent, Day 15: THE CORNERSTONE

Scripture:   I Peter 1:22-2:10

Focus on the Word

The apostle Peter, fully aware that there were people who rejected Jesus and who chose to be “disobedient to the word,” (I Peter 2:7,9, NASB) said to the first century church,  “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” (2 Peter 2:10, MSG).

These folks had come to Christ and opened their lives to His amazing grace. The truth of God was profoundly important to them, and they came to believe in Jesus.  Peter calls these brave people to live out the meaning of having their lives cleaned up in Jesus Christ.  “Fervently love one another from the heart” (I Peter 1:22, NASB), he told them.  He challenged them to “Make a clean sweep of malice and pretense, envy and hurtful talk.  Why this challenge; Because, he said, “You’ve had a taste of God. Now, like infants at the breast, drink deep of God’s pure kindness” (I Peter 2:1-3, MSG).  

As followers of Jesus the Christians were challenged to see themselves a priestly and holy people, set apart for God. God had come into their story, and had made a profound difference in them, a time-and-eternity difference.  God had brought them from “Nothing to something, from rejected to accepted.”  They had tasted God and had come to experience “God’s pure kindness.”  Lost, they discovered that Jesus had found them.  In the dark Jesus shinned a light.  Once they had been separated and alone, now they were “the people of God” (I Peter 2:10, NASB).

In Lent we slow down, look into the “imperishable…living and enduring word of God” (I Peter 1:23, NASB), and remember from whence we come.  God has laid “a precious cornerstone,” Jesus Christ, and “Whoever trusts in this stone as a foundation will never have cause to regret it” I Peter 2:6, MSG).  May we look to that Cornerstone, remember that He is “the living enduring word of God” (I Peter 1:23, NASB), and continue build our lives on Him.

Today’s Prayer

O God, I have tasted Your goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want You; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Your glory, I pray, that so I may know You indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, "Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away." Then give me grace to rise and follow You up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long. In Jesus' Name, Amen.  (A. W. Tozer)