Posted on 07/05/2023 9:35:56 AM PDT by metmom
"You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house" (1 Pet. 2:5). Christ is your life, and you are an integral part of what He is accomplishing in the world.
The Jewish culture of Peter's time centered on the Temple in Jerusalem. Apparently drawing from that picture, Peter used vivid language to teach that God no longer dwells in an earthly, material, temporal house, but in a spiritual house. Christ is the cornerstone, and the spiritual house He is building is comprised of individual believers.
That analogy introduces us to the first spiritual privilege Christians enjoy: union with Christ Himself. That makes Christianity utterly unique among religions. Buddhists are not said to be in Buddha. Muslims are not in Muhammad. A Confucianist is not in Confucius. Only Christians are united with and receive their spiritual life from the object of their worship.
When you came to Christ, the living stone, you also became a living stone yourself. You possess His resurrection life and draw from His spiritual resources. That's what Peter meant when he said that God "has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet. 1:4).
Ephesians 2:19-22 adds, "You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God's household, having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together is growing into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit." Christ is the cornerstone of the church, built on the foundation of biblical truth, which is the divine revelation given through the apostles and prophets. Rejoice in the privilege of being united with Christ and learning from His Word!
Suggestions for Prayer
Thank God for selecting you as one of His spiritual stones. Seek His wisdom and grace in living each day to His glory.
For Further Study
Read Acts 17:24, 1 Timothy 3:15, and Hebrews 3:6, noting what they teach about God's spiritual house.
From Drawing Near by John MacArthur Copyright © 1993. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.com.
Studying God’s Word ping
Jesus calls us Friends if we Follow him.
I am becoming more and more convinced that my highest purpose as a Christian is to day by day, line upon line, precept upon precept — merge with Christ. As it says in Ephesians 4: that we are to grow up into Him in all things.
It is not unlike the ideal set forth for husbands and wives: that they become one. I like that a lot.
It is surely not that I will attain to God’s infinitely higher thoughts and ways. It is that I aspire in that direction.
I liked this devotional.
Attempts have been made to interpret 6:19-20 as applying to an individual, but that would be an unnatural eisegesis that abandons the grammar, context, and audience to which the verses apply.
A correctly translated and exegetically preached interpretation is that the whole entity of the assembly, not of any individual constituent of that body, but that whole structured spiritual house of individual living "stones" --when assembled and figuratively fitted together--form a localized "house of worship" (not the physical sheltering meeting hall), the unseen guiding enlivening Spirit of God suffusing and influencing throughout.
It is from this spiritual fortress that the Heralds of the Gospel sally forth to find and recruit more disciples, to persuade them to become Companions of The Faith.
WHAT?!
I thought when yur saved and ya die; ya really stay ALIVE and go to Heaven!
(Why does this have to be so confusing?)
But I do NOT 'understand' this claim.
By the word of the Lord, we declare to you that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will be the first to rise. After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words. (I Thess 4:13-18) |
How are the DEAD IN CHRIST gonna rise if their spirits are already in heaven?
When each living and sentient spirit are each joined, integrated, with its new individual perfected spiritual body of the same kind, as Jesus has already been, from and out of this temporal dimension as one's spirit has been, never ever to be separated from it again, all occurring at the harpadzo, the Rapture (1 Thess. 4:17), the Change (1 Cor. 15:51-52; 2 Cor. 3:18), to the apogee of perfection, to exist and be seen, just like as He is even now (1 Jn. 3:2), seen by Him by His disciples while they walked together on the way to Emmaus, unremarked by them until He broke bread with His wounded unhealed hands.
Why is it, Els, that some people do not seem to be able to part from the concepts promulgated by Jakobus Arminius and John Wesley (whose cult is now in such a morass while plunging its adherents further into condemnation), to break with it and be immersed into--to cling to--the Risen Savior, His Word, and the Cross-death alone for their instant and eternal justification?
Why is it?
An answer from me; since I've not noticed any of these aformentioned people indicating the reasons for their beliefs; would require me to be somewhat of a mindreader - a thing which is frowned upon in these threads.
It can seem confusing. There’s a good explanation here:
https://www.gotquestions.org/what-happens-after-death.html
When I feel confusion coming on, I focus on Jesus and ask for His clarity.
Works for me; too.
Awesome!!
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