Great Plains Daily Devotional for 5/9/2020

1 Peter 2:1-10 

Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like 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. For it stands in scripture:

“See, I am laying in Zion a stone,
    a cornerstone chosen and precious;
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe,

“The stone that the builders rejected
    has become the very head of the corner,”

and

“A stone that makes them stumble,
    and a rock that makes them fall.”

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts 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.

What does it mean that you are a hold (or royal) priesthood? For me, this is a reminder that an overarching theme is encouragement to Christians who are suffering or are about the suffer persecution, reminding us all of the source of our identity as God’s people and a responsibility to live out that identity in the midst of pain and suffering. Faithfulness in actions and union as a community then are to be the mark of God’s people. Even when we feel alienated from much in our life journey, we have been reborn as child of God, and are therefore members of God’s household.

Prayer for Reflection

Acts 2 2:14a, 36-41
Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19
1 Peter 1:17-23
Luke 24:13-35