A devotional from 1 Peter 2: 4-5

“4 Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and ⁵like living stones, let yourselves be built^* into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

One verse, drawn from our text for next Sunday, to start our week. 

Can you picture a desert?  Lots of sand dunes with impressive winds blowing across?  Something out of Lawrence of Arabia?  Or maybe the hardpan where Emmett discovered Payton at the beginning of Silverado?  The desert of the Middle East, around Jerusalem, the desert of Jesus’ home territory, is not that blowing sand, it’s all about the stones.  Lots and lots and lots and lots of stones, everywhere. 

The law to this day is that building in Jerusalem must be done in the local stone. 

It was a common vision to all the people reading Peter’s letter.  They would have gotten the image of a living stone, of other stones building upon that living stone, they would have gotten the metaphor of the spiritual house that is being built.  Today, the image we might recognize would be that of the automobile.  We see them everywhere, there is no place to escape them.

The call is to come to him and to allow ourselves to be built upon the cornerstone that he set.  It isn’t about what we can, should, or ought to do.  What we are supposed to do is even harder.  We have to surrender everything we think we should be doing in order to let Christ start over in us.

Yoda said something powerful to Luke in Star Wars, “You must unlearn what you have learned.”  Same for us.   We must unlearn so that we may learn from Jesus.  We are being built into a spiritual house, we are being built into a holy priesthood, we are being built into something that God wants us to be.  Why?

We are called upon to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.  Once again, we have an image that would have been immediately seen and understood by the Jews receiving Peter’s letter.  Their entire religious structure was set up around the Temple in Jerusalem.

And the Temple in Jerusalem was built up into an industry of animal sacrifice.  The entire Law of Moses was built on the premise of blood for blood.  Our very clean, sanitary world has a very hard time wrapping its sensibilities around that the practice of animal sacrifice.

But the requirement of the passage is that we make SPIRITUAL sacrifices.  Jesus was the final sacrifice of blood for blood, sacrifices finally and for all who believe in his name.

Now consider what is required in the sacrifice.  It is an offering to God in three parts.  1. It recognizes that God’s laws have been broken.  2. It offers something else to God rather than oneself to atone for breaking the law.  3. Built in is the implication that you will not do it again. 

Jesus spilled His blood on our behalf.  How are we going to change our lives to show the world that blood wasn’t spilled in vain?   

We are not, not be ourselves.  But learn about Jesus, pray to Jesus, make him a part of your life, and let yourself be built into a spiritual house.