Christian Tract Outreach

"Come to him, to that Living Stone, rejected by men, but in God's sight chosen and precious, and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."

This is again a passage of scripture which excites my heart and soul every time it comes to mind. Having worked in building with bricks and concrete blocks for many years, the idea of building with stone has always intrigued me, so much more difficult than working with bricks and blocks. The fitting and shaping which is required is very time consuming, and requires great skill.

When it comes to building God's spiritual house, using living stones. I am so very glad that he is the one who is doing the shaping and fitting as he always does this work just right. Sadly, there are many church groups and denominations which have had this shaping and fitting work done by men, and so they never fit together properly, and sooner or later fragment and come tumbling down

Mind you, it is very true, as is made clear in our passage of scripture, we have a pro-active part in this shaping and moulding of ourselves so as to fit into God's building without causing irritation to those around us. Our great God will not bring about the many essential changes in us unless we submit to his loving will. And if we are unwilling to submit to his authority, how are we ever going to come to the point of being made into the image of the perfect one, Jesus Christ. Surely we don't think we can achieve this of ourselves?

What an extraordinarily high calling!! We are destined to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices which are acceptable to our Father, through Jesus Christ, and the primary sacrifices we offer are praise and thanksgiving. Heb 13:15 "Through Jesus, let us continually offer uo the sacrifice of praise, which is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name." Psalm 50:23 "He who brings thanksgiving as his sacrifice honors me."

The very fact that the words CONTINUALLY and SACRIFICE are used in reference to both praise and thanksgiving makes it very clear to me that he, the Word of God, is not talking about the times we feel like praising our God, but instead he is talking about the very frequent times when it is almost the last thing we feel able to do.