2 Like new born babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
4 As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— 5 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.
When we meet Jesus, He changes us so we can be like Him. This is the work of Jesus’ death and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Verse 2 urges us to embrace the purity and freshness of those new born – Calvary has unsullied us, keep seeking that purity out! Keep being intentional about living ‘clean’! Some of us are excellent at ‘clean eating’ (meaning a lifestyle choice rather than being better with a napkin!): very clear about what is good to put into our bodies and what is not – let’s extend these ‘good choices’ to our whole lives.
There’s the added GREAT NEWS that God, the Holy Spirit will be alongside and inside enabling us to choose to live close to Him. ‘Grow up in …. salvation’ suggests we understand and mature, perhaps knowing ourselves better and knowing what to avoid. Can you identify places where you know God has enabled you to ‘grow up’ a bit?
‘Crave’ (v.2) is a good word to think about. Do I crave God? Can we truly say to Him, “All I want, is You?”
On to the stone…….it’s a challenge being built together with other people, co-operating together with others and our God in His plan to save the world. It means giving up our rivalries and gossip; being real and connected to each other and our Lord and Saviour. It means a life together.
Being built together to become something much more useful than a stone on its own: together we become an entire building. The fitting together of what might appear to be a random collection of stones into one useful thing. This is us! The Builder (Hebrews 3.1) has to shape the stones. If we are to work well together we’ll need to be smoothed out – it might be tough, but it’s God at work, enabling us to be something more as church than we would be as individuals.
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Application:
What do I need to submit so that God can do this? What needs to go? Talk to Jesus about this now.