I Peter 2:9-12
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
Christian, what separates you from the world? Do we seek approval from the world, to fit in, to be popular, to be famous, or are we willing to be despised by the world? Though many followed Christ during His time on earth, many people despised Him, death plots ran amuck, people hated Him, He did not fulfill their Messianic expectations, they expected a conqueror over Rome, not over sin. People spat, punched, mocked, beat, Him while He was carrying the cross to Golgotha. Yet we expect the world to love us and receive our message of Jesus’ forgiveness with open and warm arms. Why? Jesus, Himself, told us that people would hate us.
As John 15: 18-21 says,
“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.
Does the world love you? Or are you despised by the world because you do not dwell in darkness. I John says that darkness can have no fellowship with light. Are you attempting to combine the two? It will never be done. There is either light or dark, never both. The two cannot dwell with each other. God is light, He pierces the darkness, exposing the flaws, the deceit, the brokeness, the sorrow, the wandering nature, the desires that are so often drunk away such as a desire for perfect love, not sex, not an emotional attachment, but agape, unconditional love in the perfect form. Such as a desire for meaning, one found not on this world, given by others around us, but a definition that comes from an authoritative source, one outside of all human comprehension, God. Do we live in the light or in the dark? Which do we seek? Which do we love? You must choose. You can only have one, you can’t have both.
Do we understand that we are chosen by God? That God has personally called us to Him. That He, in all of His glory and honor, desires to know you personally and intimately. He chose you to be His masterpiece. The question is, will you stop fighting, and though it may hurt, will you allow Him to form you how He wants to form you? WIll you give up and just let Him take control? A sculpture does not form itself, rather the sculptor forms it, exactly how He wants, chiseling away where he desires, until the sculpture is complete, a beautiful masterpiece. Will you just give yourself to Him so that He can form you into His masterpiece, into His sculpture?
We have meaning and purpose and family in God. We were once not a people, but now we are people of the King. That is so amazing! That God, the perfect and just God who can have no part in sin and hates sin, loved us regardless of our sin, provided a way for our redemption and has adopted us as His children though we did absolutely nothing to deserve it. We spat in His face, rebelled against Him, betrayed Him, and yet He loves us more than we will ever know. “For God SO LOVED THE WORLD.” If you don’t strive to understand God’s love, you will never understand what it means to be His child. If you have never experienced His love, ask yourself why not? What is keeping you from finding true and perfect love? A love that will never fade, that will never leave you, a love that will never disappoint, a love that seeks your betterment, a love that will blow your mind, yet we treat it as second rate to our whimsical, self absorbed concept of love? Why? Are we truly content with the “love” that we know, or do we want more? Christian, after much time thinking about this question I must ask, if you are satisfied in your current knowledge of God’s love and don’t desire to experience it more than you are, what or who has your heart? If you don’t have a passion to seek the love of God out, to experience it more and more each and every day, to learn more about it, to live out a life, mirroring that very same love, I must ask if God truly has your heart or if it lies elsewhere?
Lastly, where do our passions lie? Do we desire God and God alone? Or do we constantly tell God that He is not enough for us? That we need to experience a sensual love, a materialistic love, an emotional love, that we need to drink or smoke because we find happiness? Is God not enough for us? Was our old life really that great that we cannot completely leave it behind for love, meaning, joy, satisfaction, peace and so much more? Even more so, was our old life so great that we tell Christ that though we appreciate what He did for us, that it just isn’t enough, that His love, His sacrifice is not enough for us? That we are not content in knowing Him, that instead we must have the world and its desires and lusts in order to find any “satisfaction.” Family, when we say that it is impossible for us to live a day without sin, but yet we live weeks without spending personal, quiet time at the Lord’s throne, our passions are mixed up. We are then living for the wrong things. We are living for the world, and not God. We need to be so dependent on God that without Him, we cannot function, we cannot get through our day without spending time with Him, that we cannot help but spread His message because of the joy it has brought us.
Family, do we live like a chosen race, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation? If we are true believers, this is what/who we are. Time to start living that way.
Blessings family
May grace and peace abound with you from God our Father and may we experience this walk together, serving our King as one body
No comments:
Post a Comment